


Mr. & Mrs. Schmidt

by flotationdevice



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-06-07 08:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6796483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flotationdevice/pseuds/flotationdevice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Tell me—how does a Russian architect meet a German car mechanic in East Berlin?’</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**-1961-**  

 Years later, Gaby would remember the first time she ever heard the name Illya Nikolayev.

It happened on a hot, humid night in late August. She was wiping her hands on a rag, finished for the day, when the tow truck crawled into the garage hauling a half-wrecked Trabbi behind it. Only she, Otto, and Leo were left, and since the men’s hands were full, it fell to her to interrogate the truck driver.

“What the hell is this, Jan?” she demanded, marching over to the driver’s side.

“ _Guten Abend_ to you too, Fräulein,” he replied sarcastically.

“Cut the shit. What is this?”

“See for yourself. I’m not about to do _your_ job _for_ you.”

“Keep that up and you’ll be lucky to keep _your_ job.” Still, she circled back around to look at the car. The windshield was intact, mostly, but the front of the car was good and crumpled, the hood dented, the bumper bent hopelessly out of shape. From what she could see of the engine, it was a miracle the whole thing hadn’t gone up in flames. “What,” she called, eyeing the damage. “Did he run into a wall?”

“Close,” Jan replied, cutting the engine and stepping out of the truck. “A tank.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Believe it. I’ve never seen somebody look so angry.”

“And who’s our lucky winner?”

“This big-shot Russian, wearing a suit, fancy glasses.  Maybe he needs a better prescription, though, eh?”

She was barely listening. Ignoring Jan was a practice she had down to an art form, and besides, she was too busy seething to pay attention to him now. _Excellent_ , she thought. _A big-shot Russian_. Probably with the army, or the government, or worse—and now his careless driving had landed his Trabant in her garage.

Jan was still babbling, and she cut him off without ceremony. “What this asshole’s name?”

“Uh, Nikolayev, I think,” he said, searching his pocket and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. “Illya Nikolayev. He gave me his phone number and everything. Says he’ll stop by tomorrow morning.”

“Good for him,” she said crisply. “Put this piece of garbage in the corner, over there. I’m off.”

“ _Bis später_.”

“ _Tchüss_ , Jan.” She waved goodbye to Otto and Leo, grabbed her purse from her desk, and stepped out into the night.

Usually she took her car to work, but lately she’d been relying on the train. The city had been in disarray for weeks; construction had congested traffic beyond belief, making her normally short commute unbearable. That night she walked down the darkened street, past the rows of houses and the market on the corner, and thought of the Russian: _Illya Nikolayev_. His name may as well have been Ivan Ivanovich. She tried picturing him, just for fun: middle-aged or older, with dark hair and thick eyebrows drawn low over a hooked nose. Definitely a bureaucrat. Hunched over, probably, from stooping over a desk all day. He would come in tomorrow morning and expect them to drop everything to fix his car—and what kind of an idiot drove into a tank, anyway?—and she would have to bite her tongue and do it. God, and how she loathed the accent; the way the Russian soldiers chewed their words, spoke German through their noses. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they were occupying her city, she thought, her country—now they were occupying her garage, as well.

She climbed the stairs to the metro stop in a foul mood. The atmosphere on the train suited her: people’s faces were haggard, chatter almost non-existent. Gaby, like other people her age, could hardly remember a time before the city had been divided—and even then, war was not something she remembered fondly. But the wall felt like the final nail in the coffin. The reality had started to sink in, and it was showing; everywhere she looked were grey faces in grey buildings, their thoughts and prayers reaching helplessly west. Just thinking of it, her already sour mood worsened. All those pigs in the _Staatsrat_ had to do was make a few calls, sign a few papers, and just like that they could ruin thousands of people’s—

Well. There was no use getting worked up over it now.

Her flat, when she reached it, was stifling. After baking in the sun all day, the concrete walls were radiating heat; she opened the windows wide, hoping for a breeze to sweep the hot, stale air out of the rooms. She was as hungry as she was tired; her arms ached from exertion, her stomach from neglect. Torn between a shower and dinner, she gave into hunger first, fishing some leftover schnitzel and potatoes out of the refrigerator. She ate it cold, standing in the kitchen, letting the tile cool her bare feet. There was no point turning on the oven—it would only make everything hotter.

Eventually the breeze she had hoped for came, but it brought little relief. She lay in bed sweating, her thin sheet clinging to her skin, and stared at the ceiling, waiting for sleep. This, it seemed, was always the longest part of her day. She had tried all sorts of tricks—books, exercise, the radio—but no matter what distraction she tried, the moment between closing her eyes and finding sleep always seemed to stretch for hours. During the day, she coped well, felt fine; but at night, trying to relax into unconsciousness, she was overcome with worries. Silly things, really—problems at the garage, tense conversations she’d had with friends; and, before, the jumps she hadn’t landed well, the steps and turns she could have done better. And more serious things, too: like her father, and the soldiers crawling through her city, and the goddamn wall that had sprouted almost overnight through the middle of it.

She turned over again, frustrated, looking for the cooler side of the pillow that didn’t exist. The clock read 1:17, and she bit back a groan, pushing her feet out from under the damp top sheet. If her own stubborn resolution hadn’t settled it, this certainly did—there was no way she would be making an appearance at the garage before noon.

 

.

 

The next day she arrived at work just as most of the men had gone home for lunch. She assumed she had avoided the Russian altogether—Otto would have handled him well, she thought—but instead, when she exited the office, cinching her belt at the waist of her coveralls, she found him standing by the main doors of the garage. Or rather, she found what she assumed to be a stranger: backlit by the afternoon sun, wearing a dark, tailored day suit, the light glinting gold off his neatly parted hair.

“Can I help you?” she asked, and he turned to face her. He’d been striking from the back, but the first impression was incomparable to the full-frontal experience. He was handsome in an absurd way, the way an actor or a singer might be: straight nose, strong jaw, with even, gold skin and a serious expression. If he was surprised by her appearance—small, dark, decidedly feminine—he didn’t show it, eyeing her coolly from the door.

“ _Guten Tag_. I’m here to see about my car,” he said, his voice deep and devoid of inflection. “It was brought in last night.”

“Your name?” she asked, a horrible suspicion pulling at her gut.

“Illya Nikolayev.”

She clenched her jaw to stop it from dropping to the floor. This tall, blonde, and—well, _handsome_ stranger was so far from what she had been expecting that she felt sure it must be some kind of trick.

“So you’re the man who drove into the tank,” she said, trying to recover her composure. He stared at her, stiffening, and she stretched her mouth into a patronizing smile. “I’m sure it came out of nowhere.”

“Is the sarcasm included in the price of repairs, or does it come extra?” he snapped unexpectedly, and she frowned, taken aback. His German was perfect.

His manners, apparently, left something to be desired.

“Just for you, free of charge,” she managed.

“Perhaps I will take my car elsewhere.” Ah— _there_ was the entitled attitude. She crossed her arms.

“Perhaps you should. Good luck finding anyone else who can fix it.” That stopped him, smoothing his scowl into a gentler frown.

“It’s that bad?”

“Maybe if you stopped making empty threats, I could show you.” She watched him open his mouth, pause, and then close it. Her chest swelled with pride. “If you’ll follow me,” she said haughtily, and waved him after her, walking to the far corner of the garage. The Trabbi was as decimated as she remembered. She stepped around it, watching him over the top of the car as he frowned, a deep crease etching itself between his eyebrows. The white lights of her workstation caught a jagged scar on his temple, throwing it into sharp relief against the smooth lines of his face.

“This is a mess,” she said frankly, tearing her eyes away. “You’re lucky it didn’t catch fire.” She kicked a tire gently, watching his eyes scan the wreck.

“How much will this cost?”

“I’m not sure yet. You’ll need new parts, for the front—they’re difficult to get a hold of. Not impossible, but difficult. The axles are out of alignment, that’ll cost you. And the engine needs heavy work. We’ll send you an estimate, but it’ll be steep. Hell, I’d almost tell you to buy a new one.”

“I might.”

“Good luck with that,” she scoffed. “You’ll be waiting months, or years. But no, I’m forgetting—of course _you_ won’t have to.” She met his eyes evenly—a beautiful blue, of course, wide and clear, the perfect distance apart on his perfectly symmetrical face—and watched them narrow, annoyed.

“I wait like anybody else.”

“You’ll be the first Russian I’ve ever met who does.” She saw his chin rise in indignation, his mouth open to argue, and she cut him off swiftly. “Still, fixing it will be faster.”

He sighed through his nose, his shoulders falling sharply with the motion. It should have been the tiniest movement; but on a man of his size, any gesture was monumental. “Where will you get the parts?”

“We’re an auto garage, Herr Nikolayev. We have suppliers.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, then looked down at the car again, running his hand along the crumpled edge of the hood. “You will bill my office for this.”

“I’ll find you the form.” She marched back around the car, past his hulking frame and across the garage, to root around in the office. When she looked up from the filing cabinet, he was standing at the door, watching her. She jumped, then scowled, embarrassed. He’d surprised her, had somehow followed her soundlessly across the room. “You’ll need to fill this out,” she said, waving it at him.

“I’ll need a desk.”

She pointed to the chair closest to the door, and, once he settled, pretended to do some filing. If she was honest with herself, she was nervous: even Ralf had gone out for lunch, and it was just her and this Russian stranger, huddled in the office under the buzzing yellow lights. She had never had any trouble taking care of herself before, but the man was a giant, and clearly not in the gentlest of moods.

“When will it be finished?” he asked sharply, snapping her out of her reverie. “The car?”

“It depends on how long the parts take to come in,” she answered, leaning over the desk beside him, her hand splayed flat against the wood. He’d filled the form in meticulously, his writing neat and square, without the usual Slavic curves. “I’d guess about a month. We’ll call you.”

“ _Dankeschön_ ,” he said stiffly, rising from the chair. This close, he towered over her, a somber vision in black and gold. She fought the impulse to step away, anxious to stand her ground. “I never got your name.”

“Schmidt,” she said, hesitating for only a moment. “Gaby Schmidt.”

“It was a pleasure, Fräulein Schmidt,” he said stiffly, the words ringing heavy and false, and walked past her out the door.

“ _Auf Wiedersehen_ ,” she called after him, leaning against the doorframe to watch him go. He didn’t bother to respond.

 

.

 

She refused to give him one more thought until a few days later, when coffee and cake at Hilde’s turned into a tirade about work.

“Wilhelm’s impossible, as always,” she said, taking a vicious bite of apple cake. “All he does is stomp around and give me dirty looks. We went out six months ago, and only twice, and baby that he is, he won’t let me forget it.”

“What an asshole,” Hilde offered sagely, taking a drag on her cigarette.

“Right? And I’m still looking for a way to get rid of Jan, but he’s just good enough at his job that it’s impossible.”

“He’s not so bad,” Josef, Hilde’s husband, called from the kitchen, and Gaby rolled her eyes.

“You’ve met him twice, _Liebling_ ,” Hilde answered. “You can’t _possibly_ imagine.”

“And—ugh. You’ll never guess what he dragged in the other day. Some idiot drove his Trabbi into a tank.”

“ _No,_ ” Hilde cooed, her mouth curling into a wicked smile. “Who?”

“This _huge_ Russian. Tall and grim and _so_ rude, Hilde.”

“And I’m sure you did nothing to provoke that reaction at all.”

“I didn’t! I just asked him how he could have _possibly_ rear-ended a vehicle that, honestly, most of us can outpace walking backwards—”

“I’ll bet that went over very well,” Josef said, walking into the dining room with a bowl of raspberries and a glass of beer. He set them on the table and pulled out a chair, easing into it with a wince.

“How’s your back, Sepp?” she asked, eyeing his movements.

“It’s been better. I’m not as young as I used to be, you know,” he said, pulling a laugh out of both of them. He tapped a cigarette out from the box on the table, and Gaby watched him lean over to his wife to light it. They had only been married three months, maybe four; but already it was difficult to remember a time when they hadn’t been together.

But of course, she could: she had known Hilde for years. They had gone to primary school together, and had trained at the Berlin Ballet, driving into West Berlin together most days of the week. She had been at the party where Hilde had met Josef: an aspiring writer, working at a publishing house in the west while living with his mother and sister in the east. They had married at the beginning of June in a small but fashionable ceremony attended by dancers, writers, journalists and artists; two months later, they had found themselves cut off from their jobs, their community—fenced in by the very wall designed to ‘protect’ them.

Gaby had gone with Hilde to watch them close the border. She had stared across the street where she had once driven to rehearsal and had met the eyes of West Berliners, yelling and protesting from their side of the fence. For nothing, of course—the wall had gone up. And dear, sensitive Josef had been put to work building it, ‘rescued’ from unemployment by the same people who had cut him off from his livelihood. It was back-breaking work. At twenty-seven, he spent most of his time at home sitting, listening to the radio, too tired to write a word.

He blew out a long stream of smoke, now, leaning forward to rub at the bridge of his nose. Hilde raised her hand to scratch at the back of his neck. “Tell us more about this Russian,” she said conspiratorially, leaning her chin onto her hand.

“He was just like the rest of them,” Gaby said dismissively.

“Although perhaps a touch less able behind the wheel,” Josef added wryly. “Or at the very least, a little more short-sighted, no?”

“Was it a soldier?” Hilde continued, tapping her cigarette against the ashtray. “Or a nasty old _tovarishch_ , with a moustache, staring up your skirt?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t wear a skirt to work. And _Gott_ , no, he was like some kind of Soviet posterchild. Tall, blonde—he looked like a recruitment poster.”

“Ooh—tall, handsome—“

“Nobody said anything about handsome—“

“Perhaps he’s an up-and-coming dictator,” Hilde continued excitedly.

“A party member _par excellence_ ,” Josef added, grinning.

“Or a secret agent,” she whispered at him, wiggling her fingers, and Gaby groaned.

“Don’t even joke. The last thing I need is the Stasi sniffing around the garage.”

“Please,” Hilde said, rolling her eyes. “They have bigger fish to fry. Smoke, Gaby?” she offered for the second time that afternoon, and Gaby shook her head, reaching for a raspberry instead.

“For the millionth time, Hilde,” she said, tearing into the fruit with her teeth. “Give me brandy or give me death.”

 

.

 

When she was younger, the weekend had felt like it would never come fast enough. Now, the end of the week was like any other day. She spent her hours at the garage to kill time; nothing soothed her quite like the steady work of tuning an engine, or changing a tire. These were problems she could handle, could understand; problems she could break into their component parts and tackle one at a time.

This Sunday morning, however, she wasn’t at the garage, or even in bed; she’d woken up at dawn to be the first at the markets, and hopefully to find some half-decent plums, a tall order this late in the season. Elsa and Franz were having a baby, and they were celebrating today, throwing a party for their closest friends. Gaby was bringing _Zwetschkenkuchen_ , which she had of course not thought to bake the night before, and so here she was, rising with the sun, trudging into the city to get her hands on the ingredients.

It was cool in the mornings, now, the autumn chill setting in at night while the days stayed hot and bright. There weren’t many people on the streets; they were either in church or in bed, and most of the roads she walked down were empty, silent but for birdsong and the distant rumble of cars. And this is why she noticed him immediately, his heavy footfalls stark against the quiet of the morning; a jogger, barrelling down the street towards her, his shadow long in front of him against the sidewalk.

 _No_ , she thought _, it can’t be, my luck cannot be this bad_ —but of course it could be, and was, and the jogger hurtling down the street towards her was none other than Illya Nikolayev. He was wearing shorts and a white jersey, so different from the somber suit of the other day; his strides were strong and perfectly even, not so much jogging as running towards her with unnerving determination.

She didn’t know what to do. Did she continue walking like she hadn’t seen him? Did she acknowledge him? She didn’t particularly want to give him the time of day, if she was being honest, but she couldn’t bear the artificiality of ignoring the only other person on the road at six thirty in the morning. Just as she was considering ducking into an alley, or perhaps crossing the road, he drew level with her, slowing for a moment to fix her with a serious look.

“ _Guten Morgen_ , Fräulein Schmidt,” he breathed, barely panting, and she deigned to glance at him, pursing her lips.

“ _Guten Morgen_ , Herr Nikolayev,” she replied coolly, and, with a nod, he was off again, sprinting past her and up the street with long, powerful strides. She could hear him for a while afterwards, but staunchly refused to look back; instead, she hurried forward, motivated by a new vexation. Everywhere she looked, everywhere she went—Russians.

 _I may as well change my name to Masha_ , she thought bitterly, and resolved to walk a different way from then on.

 

.

 

She didn’t see him for a long time after that. Her life fell back into its regular rhythm—well, its recently regular rhythm, reorganized into a smaller space—and her days took on a uniform hue as summer eased into a dry, dusty autumn. When she wasn’t at the garage, she roamed the city, stopping by her friends’ for lunch or drinks; when she wasn’t visiting with someone, she was in her flat, in the bath or in bed, whiling away the hours, waiting to sleep and begin again.

The Trabant sat in the corner of the garage, unmoved, and greeted her with its mangled front every time she came into work. She had done what she could, but without parts, the car would have to remain unfinished. They’d ordered them through the official channels, of course, but those were notoriously slow, and she knew better than to rely on them. Really, she was waiting for Ralf’s brother to pull through: he had quick fingers and clever friends, and he’d brought in a bit of extra cash for them more than once. It was harder now that the city was overrun with soldiers and police, but he hadn’t let her down yet. It was only a matter of time.

Finally, on a Tuesday night, it happened. Ralf’s brother Klaus appeared at the back of the garage and waved; Otto hoisted open the doors, and in rolled a blue Trabant—perhaps slightly worse for wear, but nothing a few hours of work couldn’t fix.

She hurried to draw the partition, cutting them off from the main room, while Otto let the doors fall shut again, the panels rattling as they fell into line.

“For you, Fräulein,” Klaus said grandly, sweeping his arm out and winking. He was younger than her, thin and dark and charming and unbearably cocky.

“I hope you waited until the owners were around the block this time, at least,” she said wryly, and he grinned. She knew how he felt—giddy with his own success, elevated, unbeatable. Inside the car, his friend honked the horn, and Otto yelled at him to get out, his voice booming in the cavernous space. “Thanks, Klaus.”

“Don’t thank me in words,” he said cloyingly, rubbing his fingers together, and she scowled, her thin patience snapping.

“Don’t get smart. You know how this works. And get that idiot out of here before he wakes up the whole neighbourhood,” she added, nodding at his friend, who was now having a full-blown argument with Otto, a man three times his age and at least twice his size.

“Always lovely to see you too, Fräulein Schmidt,” Klaus trilled, unperturbed, and waved his friend over. “ _Tschüss_ , Gaby.”

“Mm hm.”

Leo locked up in front and turned out the main lights, and after that they descended on it like a pack of wolves, tearing the small car into even smaller pieces. The body plates and main engine were locked into the back, hidden in storage; the smaller, less recognizable pieces were scattered across the room, the wheels dismantled and stacked by the wall. By the time they finished, it was morning. She said hello to Gunter and Hermann—on their way in for an early morning shift—as she left, and emerged into the sun sore, sleepy, and satisfied.

At home, for once, she found sleep almost instantly, smiling happily into her pillow. There—now she could fix Illya Nikolayev’s stupid car, and take his stupid money, and get his stupid, handsome face out of her mind, for good.

 

.

 

Of course, things never were that simple.

Days later, a VoPo chief waltzed in demanding tune-ups on a shabby fleet of police vehicles. “You don’t have police mechanics to do this?” Otto sighed wearily, sitting with the chief in the office. The man pursed his lips in response, the face one might make upon swallowing a lemon.

“They are attending to other vehicles at the moment.”

“And our payment?”

“You can consider my continuing blind eye to your nightly operations payment enough, Herr Hoffmann.”

“To brotherhood, then.”

“That’s the spirit, comrade.”

The work was easy, but interminable. Halfway through the third car, a clunker with a rattle she just couldn’t soothe, Wilhelm stomped over to her workstation, grease in his hair and a scowl on his face. “There’s someone on the phone for you,” he said shortly. She sighed, stretching her shoulders, and walked over to the office, wiping her hands as she walked. Hermann was inside, filling out an order form, and he motioned at the phone, the receiver face down on the table.

“It’s the architect,” he said.

“Who?”

“The Russian. Nikolayev.”

“He’s an architect?” she said stupidly, confused and unsettled. “What’s a Russian architect doing in Berlin?”

“I don’t know—studying? Designing? Building the wall?” He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “He stopped by yesterday. Go on, pick up the phone.”

She did. “This is Gaby,” she said simply.

“ _Fräulein Schmidt_ ,” came the response, broken up by the poor connection. “ _It’s Illya Nikolayev_.”

“Yes, I know.” She waited, letting the silence stretch uncomfortably between them. “What is it?” she added, exasperated.

“ _It has been a month_.”

“If you say so.”

She could practically hear him pursing his lips at her. “ _I was wondering when I would be able to pick up my car_.”

“Well, the parts came in a few days ago.”

“ _And?_ ”

“Maybe next weekend?”

“ _You don’t know?_ ”

“We’re very busy here, Herr Nikolayev.”

“ _I’ll come next Friday, then_.”

“Fine. _Auf Wiedersehen_.” She hung up the phone abruptly, and stared hard at it, ignoring Hermann’s curious look.

“What was that?” he asked incredulously.

“Nothing,” she answered sharply. “He rubs me the wrong way, that’s all.”

She fully intended to have his car done by the next week, too; she was sick of looking at it, and sick of having to deal with the Russian. The Russian, who, as it turned out, was an _architect_. Not what she had expected, although certainly no better, either. She’d turned it over in her mind again and again, and concluded that he had to be there to build the wall—it was the most obvious explanation. Before, she’d thought him responsible in a more indirect way; now, she knew the barrier dividing her city was, at least in part, directly his fault.

Her best intentions, however, didn’t change the insurmountable amount of work ahead of her. She considered setting the police cars aside to finish the crumpled Trabbi, but the police chief came around twice more, breathing down their necks and making unsubtle threats, spurring them on to work faster. And, as Otto pointed out before sending her forcefully home one night, even she couldn’t work twenty-four hours a day. On Wednesday, she told Wilhelm to call Herr Nikolayev and let him know that his car wouldn’t be done in time, and resigned herself to putting off their final parting by another week.

Herr Nikolayev, however, did not get the message.

He arrived on Friday at lunch, wearing a grey suit and a dark tie, and marched straight towards her, his movements sharp, his expression serious. “Fräulein Schmidt,” he called across the garage. His voice boomed through the cavernous space, empty now of the sounds of machinery, and she froze where she stood, overcome by a sudden wave of dread and irritation.

“What can I do for you, Herr Nikolayev?” she asked, turning around to face him. She was caught off-guard: sweaty and tired, with oil, she knew, smeared across her cheek. She had been at the garage since dawn, unable to sleep and anxious to busy herself. Her back ached. Her eyes itched. She drew herself up to her full height as he stopped in front of her and tried to school her expression into one of indifference.

“I came for my car,” he said slowly, his eyebrows drawing together slightly. She stared at him.

“It’s not done,” she replied plainly, shaking her head at him. His expression darkened.

“It’s not done?”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“You told me to come on Friday.”

“We called you two days ago and told you it wouldn’t be done.”

“I received no such phone call.”

“Maybe your secretary didn’t pass on the message.”

“Impossible. Did you call personally?”

She bit the inside of her lip, considering. “No,” she admitted. “I asked a colleague.”

“Then the fault is yours. Clearly he failed to pass the message along.”

Rationally, she knew, Wilhelm probably _had_ forgotten. Despite this, she felt anger swell, hot and bitter in her stomach, as she faced his smug expression. “How dare you,” she spat. “How dare you walk in here and accuse us of incompetence?”

“You do not have my car finished. You failed to inform me of this. This, to me, is incompetence. Do you disagree?”

“You have no idea what I do, and you don’t know how long it takes to do it. Leave me to my job, and I’ll leave you to yours.”

“Something made significantly harder by my lack of transportation.”

“If you had taken better care of the damn thing in the first place, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“You are driving instructor now as well?” His German was becoming stiffer as the colour in his face rose. She could see his fingers tapping where his arms were crossed, the motion rapid and tense.

“I don’t need to be a driving instructor to tell you that when you see a _tank_ , you hit the _brakes_. Not the gas.”

“Perhaps you should spend less time thinking of tanks, and more time thinking of business.”

“Excuse me?”

“The way you operate this garage is unacceptable.”

“Please, tell me all about how I should run _my_ business.”

“You should serve your customers in order,” he bit back. “In the order that they come in, not in the order of your personal prejudice.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” he continued, his voice strained, his lip curled. “When I came here a month ago, this place was nearly empty. And now? Cars everywhere, half assembled. A reparations factory. I ask around, and what do they tell me? Police vehicles. German police. Never mind the Russian, yes?”

She huffed out an incredulous laugh. “ _That’s_ what you think is happening here?”

“Is it not?”

“The police chief _marched_ in here,” she began, taking an angry step towards him. “And _demanded_ that we take in a fleet of cars for repairs. Free tune-ups, of course, because we’re all comrades, right? We’re all part of the great German _brotherhood_. And to speed us along, he threw in a few choice threats about all the ways he could shut us down and make our lives miserable, so obviously, we took the work. And every time I step outside to eat or sleep or _breathe_ , he’s back in here again, pointing fingers, dropping names, giving out orders like he owns the place. Because who _cares_ if we need to eat, and sleep, when the VoPo need their cars and need them now. And so here I am, working myself half to death to get this done, and now _you_ come marching in and start accusing me of incompetence. Are you going to threaten me, now, too? Withhold pay? Have me arrested?”

“No,” he said quietly, his eyes wide, but she pressed on, beside herself with frustration.

“You’re all the same!” she continued. “You walk around and talk about equality and modernity and the _collective_ , when really what you’re doing is stomping all over us. Your goddamn Trabant will get fixed when I have the time to fix it, and not a minute sooner. Okay, Herr Nikolayev?”

“Okay,” he echoed, his voice soft, his eyebrows drawn, and she let out a heavy breath. He stared at her, and she stared back, and slowly she began to feel incredibly foolish. Here she was, a grown woman, covered head to toe in dust and grease, screaming into the face of a man twice her size. She took a step back self-consciously and jammed her hands into her pockets, meeting his eyes defiantly. He uncrossed his arms, letting them drop to his sides.

“Okay,” he said again, and his expression smoothed. “I am going away, for maybe three weeks. This will give you time to finish, yes?”

“Yes,” she ground out, feeling small and petulant in the face of his newfound composure.

“Good. I—I’ll come back three weeks from now, then.” He stood there for a moment, looking grim and concerned, and then tipped his head at her. “ _Auf Wiedersehen_.”

“ _Tchüss_ ,” she mumbled back, and watched him until his tall frame disappeared around the corner.

 

.

 

She didn’t exactly regret it, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel uneasy about it.

In the days after the argument, she felt off-balance. She kept glancing over her shoulder, paranoid about something she couldn’t even name; she slept worse than ever. It turned out Gunter had heard her little monologue and told Otto, who took her aside the next afternoon to give her a stern warning about losing her temper in front of customers.

“He’s not a regular customer,” she argued weakly.

“No,” Otto said sternly. “He’s a Russian come down here for God knows what reason, and the best thing you can do is keep your mouth shut and your head down.”

“But—“

“Gaby,” he’d insisted. “Don’t pick fights you can’t win.”

She certainly felt as though she had won, although that didn’t give her any peace of mind. Soon enough, however, the unease faded, and her life lapsed back into its usual routine. She finished the Trabbi, making it run as well as it ever would, and they finished the rest of the VoPo cars, too. The chief, when he came to check them over, was unusually subdued, almost nervous.

“Yes,” he kept saying. “Yes, very nice job, yes. Very good.” He paid them after all, looking positively anguished as he handed over the cheque, and she and Otto watched him in wonderment as he shuffled anxiously out the door, pulling his hat low over his head.

“So miracles do exist,” she muttered dryly, watching him all but run down the street. Otto grunted in agreement.

The end of October came and went, and with it the last traces of summer; the streets were filled with dry leaves and dust, and it rained more often than not. She visited Hilde and Josef, and Elsa and Franz, and Ingrid and Wolfgang, and Margret and Frank, and all the others; she went to Gertrud’s birthday party and Claudia’s christening, feeling like she was moving through a never-ending dream, the details vague, the images fuzzy. She worked and ate and danced and drank, and at the end of the day she tried to sleep. Every day felt the same as the last: empty, despite all she had done to fill it.

Ralf got his hands on a Ray Charles record and sold it to her, and she carried it home one day wrapped in brown paper, tucked into her bag. She loved the thrill of a secret, the rush that came with hiding contraband in plain sight; she listened to it all month long, playing _Georgia on My Mind_ until she couldn’t stand it anymore.

 

.

 

She was flat on her back, tinkering with the suspension on a Wartburg, when Wilhelm rapped on the side of the car. “There’s a Russian here asking for you,” he grumbled, and she waited for his boots to disappear from sight before sliding out from under the car. Standing near the office: who else but Illya Nikolayev, dressed more casually than she had ever seen him, in grey trousers and a brown suede jacket, his hands in his pockets. She fussed over her hands for a moment, trying to wipe as much of the grease from them as she could, before rolling to her feet and marching over, self-conscious, and irritable for it.

“Welcome back,” she said evenly, drawing closer. He turned to face her, his facial expression betraying nothing, and nodded. “Did you need something?”

“I came to pick up my car.”

“I gave the keys to Wilhelm.”

“ _Ja_ , I know,” he said, and held up his hand, the keys dangling from his finger. “I wanted—I wanted to apologize. For last month. For my behaviour.”

She frowned, taken aback. “You wanted…to apologize?”

“Yes.”

“Well, go on then.”

His face creased into a frown, although she thought she caught a glint of amusement in his eye. “I’m sorry,” he rumbled. “You were treated unfairly, Fräulein Schmidt.”

“Apology accepted,” she sniffed.

“I’m glad,” he said, his expression softening by a degree. “And to thank you—“ He reached for the table behind him, and came up with a slim box she hadn’t noticed before, wrapped in crisp white paper. “A gift,” he finished, and held it towards her.

Dumbfounded, she took it out of his hand. Her thumbs left dark smudges against the wrapping, and she looked at it disbelief. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” he said simply. “The car is in back?”

“ _Ja_ ,” she murmured, confused and distracted, and he tipped his head at her.

" _Auf Wiedersehen_ , Fräulein Schmidt.”

“ _Tchüss_ ,” she murmured, but he was already out the door.

She slipped the box into her bag in the office and didn’t think of it much for the rest of the day. On the train home, however, she found the curiosity was eating at her, and took it out gingerly, weighing it in her hands for a moment. Couldn’t he have just given her flowers? Or even better—a big tip?

The paper had been folded impeccably, held together at the seam with a neat piece of tape. She slid her nail beneath it, the grime on her fingers standing out against the paper, and unfolded the gift carefully. Inside was a flat white box, cardboard, with something written in what looked like French. She wrinkled her nose. He hadn’t bought her jewelry, had he?

She opened the box, and blinked, surprised. Inside was a pair of gloves in a brown, buttery leather, folded neatly on a bed of tissue paper. She pulled one out and ran her fingers over it, finding it wonderfully soft. The stitching was all but invisible; when she pulled it onto her hand, curious, she found that it fight perfectly, molding to her hand as though it had been custom made. She wiggled her fingers, watching the leather wrinkle and flex, and felt immeasurably strange as she thought of Herr Nikolayev, tall and handsome and serious, in a shop in France, looking through women’s gloves. He had guessed the size perfectly, it seemed, which meant he must have been paying attention to her hands, which was an odd thought. They were subtle and plain, and yet, she thought, one of the most beautiful things she had ever owned. He had gone to France, or Belgium, perhaps, and had gone to a glove store to buy her a pair of beautiful leather gloves. And after she had screamed at him, no less!

The strange feeling stayed with her all the way home, burning in her chest like a shot of vodka. She tried to swallow past it, and found that she couldn’t—instead, she found herself fighting a smile whenever she thought of him. _Don’t be ridiculous,_ she told herself. _The man was an asshole, and frankly, he owed you. You’re acting like a teenager._

Still, she slipped the gloves on—there was no use in letting a beautiful gift go to waste.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I keep planning long chapters and then breaking them into pieces. This story will have an infinitely expanding chapter count, I think. Sorry/not sorry.

Gaby was half-expecting to never see him again, and so to say she was surprised to see him at the garage the next week would be an understatement.

She had been excited, before, to get Illya Nikolayev out of her thoughts and out of her life. Now, she found herself thinking of him more and more often. November had taken a turn for the cold and miserable, and so she found reason to wear the leather gloves he had bought her more often than not. _My old gloves are worn out_ , she told herself. _There’s no sense in not using these_. Every time she glanced down at her hands she thought of him; of his face and his voice as he’d said _I wanted to._

The afternoon was windy and grey, and at first, she paid no mind to the white Trabbi creeping up the street. They were a dime a dozen in the city—even Leo drove one, for God’s sake—but she straightened up as it stopped right before the entrance, and the hulking figure inside became recognizable. Sitting behind the wheel, the Russian’s knees reached almost to his ears; he had to contort himself to get out the door. He was wearing his usual dark suit, his golden hair gelled neatly into place, and he hesitated for only a moment before stepping towards her.

“ _Guten Tag,_ Fräulein Schmidt,” he said, formal as ever, and for a moment she felt excruciatingly aware of her hands as she tried to decide where to put them. In her pockets? _Too contrived_. On her waist? _Too combative_. She settled for smoothing them over her hair and linking them behind her back.

“ _Hallo_ ,” she called back. “What—uh, did you need something?”

“One of the tail lights has gone,” he said evenly. “Do you have time to take a look at it?”

She glanced back behind her, nervous for some reason, and scanned the empty garage. It was as though he came at lunchtime on purpose, just to get her alone. The thought made something flutter in her stomach, and she tamped it down viciously, annoyed with herself. _Get a grip_ , she thought, and turned back to him. “Yeah, I have time.”

She drove his car carefully into the garage, easing it into her workspace in the back. “It shouldn’t take long,” she assured him, inspecting the light. “Probably just a blown fuse.” She assumed he would sit down near the office, or perhaps take a walk around the block, to the market, to get lunch; instead, he leant against her desk and watched her as she prised the dashboard open, hunting for the fuse box. It was distracting.

If she was honest with herself, she was almost _glad_ to see him. Which was ridiculous, because she didn’t even know the man. And while he had been kind and generous to her once, that hardly erased the unpleasantness of every other encounter they had had before that. Now, her neck prickled under the weight of his stare. She resisted the urge to glance back at him, focusing stubbornly on the work in front of her.

“Yeah,” she confirmed finally, speaking more to break the silence than anything else. “It’s the fuse.”

“That’s easy to fix, yes?”

“Yeah. Give me a minute.” She slid out of the car and went to the back room to find a replacement. When she came back out, he was exactly where she’d left him, all two metres of him reclining back against her desk. He looked mysterious in the half-light, unrecognizable as the bureaucrat-cum-architect who had lost his temper with her the month before. His face, thrown into shadow, was unreadable; his pose was so easy, so relaxed, as to appear almost rehearsed. _Like an act_ , she thought absurdly, and hurried back into the car.

The fuse was easy to replace. She’d done it a hundred times before, and before she knew it, she was backing the car out into the street and handing him the keys. “Should I bill your office, then?” she asked nonchalantly, and his face edged into something that was almost a smile.

“I have no doubt that you will. Thank you,” he added, nodding at the car.

“For what? It’s my job.”

His raised his eyebrows at her, as though to say: _whatever you say_ , and she drew her mouth in tight to keep from smiling.

“Well,” he said. “ _Auf Wiedersehen,_ Fräulein.”

“Wait,” she blurted, and he paused, his hand on the roof of the car. The wind was biting, whipping her bangs across her eyes, sinking in through her coveralls. Still, she felt hot on the inside, a burning heat spreading across her face that she hoped he would chalk up to the cold. “Thank you,” she choked out, the words sticking in her throat. He stared impassively at her. “For the gloves. Thank you.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said after a moment, a strange stillness in his face, and she bit her lip, unsure of where to go from there. He opened his mouth, closed it again; frowned, and then asked: “Do they fit?”

“Perfectly,” she replied, so quickly that she embarrassed herself. “They’re good,” she added more quietly, trying to save face.

“I’m glad,” he said shortly. They stood there for a few more moments, the wind whipping around them, filling the awkward space between them, until finally she took a step backwards.

“ _Schönen Tag_.”

He nodded at her, once, and folded himself back into his car.

 

.

 

That night, at Hilde and Josef’s, she mentioned him again over dinner.

“The Russian was back?” Hilde said with interest, lowering her fork.

“ _Ja_.”

“The one you had that horrible argument with?”

“Well, he apologized for that,” Gaby said uncomfortably, pushing a potato around her plate. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Hilde share an amused look with her husband. “What?”

“He apologized? How?”

“He said ‘ _es tut mir Leid’_. How does anyone apologize?” she added testily. She thought of the brown leather gloves folded in her coat pocket and decided not to mention them. Hilde, she knew, would read more into it than she needed to; she was too exhausted to deal with the inevitable interrogation.

“Did you ever figure out what the hell he’s doing here?”

“I believe the top contenders were soldier, dictator, and international spy,” Josef added cheerfully, taking a hearty sip of beer.

“He’s an architect, actually.”

“Ah,” Josef said, his smile evaporating.

“What the hell is a Russian architect doing in Berlin?” Hilde wondered aloud, and Josef sighed.

“Working on the wall, I imagine.”

“The bastard,” Hilde said sagely, and Gaby raised her eyebrows in agreement. “Almost makes you wish he _were_ a politician, doesn’t it? A least then he could get you a visa.”

“How would that help me get a visa?” Gaby asked, amused and exasperated, and Hilde gave her a conspiratorial wink.

“I think he’s taken a shine to you.”

“What on earth makes you think that?”

“It’s not often you hear of big-shot Russian men apologizing to German mechanic girls, is all.”

“Well, I want nothing to do with him,” Gaby said firmly. “How many of us have died over this damn wall already? Half a dozen?”

“Seven,” Josef murmured, frowning at the table. “They shot a man a few weeks ago, trying to swim the Spree.”

“Well, there you have it,” Gaby said bitterly, feeling a sick twist in her stomach. “Seven. I want nothing to do with it.”

 

.

 

 “I think you have an admirer,” Ralf said brightly the next afternoon, leaning up against the hood of the Citroën she was working on and smirking at her.

“What?” she said distractedly. She was elbow deep in the car’s engine, wrestling with the gear box.

“The Russian. He’s back.”

“ _What?_ ” She looked up at him sharply, giving him her full attention. “What does he want now?”

“His windshield’s cracked.”

“Somebody needs to take away this guy’s license,” she muttered darkly, before straightening up and looking across the room. There he was—tall and sharp, leaning against the wall, looking around at nothing in particular. “Where’s the car?”

“Leo’s handling it.”

“So what do you need me for?” she snapped, annoyance bubbling up, and Ralf grinned.

“I don’t. But he asked if you were here. Thought you ought to know.”

“Did you? Well I think you ought to mind your own business,” she said viciously, and glared at him as he walked away, chuckling to himself. She sighed and leaned onto her hands, torn. It wasn’t that she particularly wanted to avoid him, but she had nothing to say to him, either. And what was he doing, asking after her like that? Leo was more than capable of handling a simple windshield. And how did this idiot keep breaking his car?

She chanced a glance at him over the hood of the DS and met his eyes. _Scheiße_. Now what?

Impulsively, she waved him over, doing her best attempt at indifference. If he was going to loiter anyway, she figured, he may as well do it out of sight, where the entire garage couldn’t stare at him. Although now, of course, she had to think of something to say. Not that she really cared what he thought of her, but she couldn’t go around waving people over and then having nothing to say to them afterwards. It was a matter of personal pride, was all.

Her tension mounted as he drew closer, her nerves reaching fever pitch as he came to stand on the other side of the DS. “Hi,” she said, perhaps a little more sharply than she should have, but if he was fazed by her demeanour, he didn’t show it.

“ _Guten Tag._ How are you?”

“Fine. And you?”

“Fine.”

“Just can’t stay away, can you?”

She could have kicked herself. _Just can’t stay away?_ What the hell was that?

“Luck is not on my side, I’m afraid,” he said gravely, gracefully sidestepping her ridiculous question.

“What did you hit this time?” That was better. Keeping it blunt, professional.

“Nothing. A branch fell onto my car.”

She hummed sympathetically. “Even God hates the Trabant.”

“He’ll have to take it up with my employers,” he said lightly, and she bit back a smile, forcing her expression to stay smooth. “This, however,” he continued, eyeing the DS in front of him. “This is a beautiful machine.”

“You know it?”

“I was in Paris when they unveiled it.”

“How?” she blurted, surprised. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“I was studying there.” He said it so casually, as though it were an everyday thing: travelling, going to Paris, witnessing historic events that didn’t involve politics and bloodshed. A spark of envy flared within her, hot and bright, and she turned angrily back to the engine.

“Then you’ll know that it’s very complex. I need to concentrate,” she said acidly, not looking at him. He shifted his weight, and then she watched his feet as he rounded the car, passing behind her. His steps were almost silent against the concrete floor.

“Of course,” he said, just as he was behind her, and she held very still until he reached her desk, setting himself into the chair behind it. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” she bit out, and ignored him for the rest of the hour he was there.

 

.

 

Franz’s birthday, on Friday night, got out of hand; drunk on vodka and rock and roll, Gaby collapsed onto the sofa and didn’t move again until the morning, when the breaking dawn startled her awake. She woke up bleary and thirsty, a crick in her neck and a pounding in her head, and stared around blankly at her friends’ living room. The table was littered with bottles and candy wrappers; the ashtray was overflowing. Wolfgang was asleep in the armchair, his tie loose and crooked, his arms dangling to the floor; Ingrid was stretched out on the other sofa, a quilt pulled up to her nose. Carefully, she rolled to her feet and slipped on her shoes.

There was a mirror in the hallway, where she stopped to examine the damage. She looked pale, she thought, and worn-out; her cheeks hollow, her face red on one side where it had been pressed against the armrest. She tried to wipe the makeup from beneath her eyes, thinking that if she couldn’t look freshly put together, she could at least aim for elegantly disheveled; her hair had escaped mostly unscathed, but her bangs refused to lie evenly across her forehead. She ruffled them in irritation. Still sleepy, and newly annoyed, she found her coat in the closet and let herself out, closing the door gently behind her.

The building was silent at seven in the morning. She trudged down the stairs to the first floor, her heels clicking against the concrete steps. The wind outside was biting, the chill insistent; but Elsa and Franz didn’t live very far away, and, she reasoned, the cold would at least wake her up.

The streets were still dark, and mostly empty; the sky a pinkish grey. She decided to cut through the park—it would be quicker, if muddy—and hurried along the paths, her mind strangely blank. She felt more awake now, and so more aware of the desolation of the park, the bare trees strange and mournful in the grey light. Her throat ached; her eyes itched and stung in the wind. She realized, belatedly, that she’d left her scarf behind; her gloves she found in her coat pocket, and she pulled them on gratefully.

Her collar drawn tight over her neck, the wind howling in her ears, she almost didn’t notice the man approaching. Eventually, however, she became aware of the crunch of gravel and the harsh sound of his breathing, and looked up to see Illya Nikolayev jogging towards her. She froze, tired and confused and unsure, and he slowed to a stop in front of her. His face was shining from the exertion, and his hair was falling from its usual careful part, blonde strands brushing over his forehead. There was something written in Russian on his sweatshirt, beneath a picture of a boat, and she watched detachedly as the words moved with the rise and fall of his chest.

“ _Guten Morgen_ ,” he said evenly, his steady voice belying the restlessness of his body.

“Hi,” she replied blankly. “You’re running?”

“I like to jog,” he said seriously, his eyebrows low on his face. “You? Going for a walk?” She wasn’t sure, and his face gave nothing away, but she thought he might have been teasing her.

“Oh, sure. I love taking walks at dawn in the freezing cold.”

“To each his own,” he rumbled.

“I was at a party,” she blurted, for some reason feeling compelled to talk. “Last night. It was too late to go home.” He looked at her silently, and she touched her bangs before she could stop herself, trying to smooth them down. “I’m a bit of a mess.”

He looked her over, then, starting at her feet and working his way carefully to her face. She felt fluttery and unnerved, overwhelmed by his presence, this unlikely conversation, the frigid wind brushing against her neck. “You look fine,” he said shortly, in the tone he might have used to describe a sack of flour, or a very utilitarian shoe. _This will be fine_. “Although perhaps tired. You should sleep.”

“Thanks for the diagnosis, doctor,” she retorted, bristling. He shrugged, unconcerned.

“We have nothing without our health.”

“Is that why you’re jogging at the crack of dawn?”

“Yes,” he conceded. “And like I said—I enjoy it.”

“Well,” she said, raising her eyebrows at him expectantly. “Don’t let me keep you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her a little bit, as though he didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “Of course.”

“ _Tchüss_ ,” she muttered, and then he was off again, hurtling past her down the trail, his form long and straight as he disappeared around the bend.

 

.

 

 “Unbelievable,” she said to herself. She was standing in the middle of the garage, adjusting the scarf around her hair and watching a frustratingly familiar Trabant pull up in front of the garage. She watched, bemused and annoyed, as Illya Nikolayev unfolded himself from his car. It was the weekend, and instead of his usual suit, he was wearing dark pants and a brown suede jacket, zipped almost to his throat. In his hand he clutched the side mirror conspicuously missing from the left side of his car.

“What,” she huffed, as he stepped over the threshold. “Did another branch fall on it?”

“Somebody drove carelessly.”

She huffed out a derisive laugh. “Was that person _you_? Driven by any army vehicles lately, Herr Nikolayev?”

She watched him grit his teeth for a moment, a muscle in his jaw jumping; and just as quickly his expression smoothed again, replaced by a stony indifference. He stared at her, and she sighed.

“Give me the keys,” she muttered, and he waited until she was right in front of him to place them carefully in her hand, as if he were handing over state secrets, not the keys to what was, in her professional opinion, the world’s worst mass-produced vehicle.

As usual, he hovered as she worked, unzipping his jacket and leaning against her desk. He watched her very carefully, as though he was memorizing a lesson. She could feel the skin on her neck prickling, and, unwilling to take it a moment longer, stood up from the stool she’d placed on the ground to glare at him.

“What?”

“Hmm?” he said mildly, raising his eyebrows a little bit.

“What are you looking at?”

“I am watching you work.”

“Why?”

“Professional interest,” he said evenly, his words echoing against the cement walls. “Is it bothering you?”

“Of course not,” she snapped, blowing a wisp of hair out of her face. It _was_ bothering her, truth be told, but to admit it would be to show him her cards. Instead, she said: “You know, you should have called, beforehand. Most garages aren’t open on the weekends.”

“I assumed.”

“You could have assumed wrong. You would have come all this way for nothing.”

“You don’t seem the type to take weekends off,” he said easily, and she frowned at him.

“I could have turned you away,” she retorted, flustered by the judgement. _You don’t seem the type_ , he said. What, did he not think she had anything better to do with her time? How dare he! “And I’m _not_ here all the time,” she added, as an afterthought, tilting her chin up at him.

“No. Sometimes, at dawn, you take walks in the freezing cold.”

“It’s not as if I _live_ here the rest of the time.”

“Lucky for me, then, that you were here,” he said, tipping his head at her. “And that you didn’t turn me away.” There was almost no inflection to his voice, no change in his expression, and yet—and yet.

She stared at him, hard, taking in the impassive expression, the crossed arms, the clear blue of his eyes. _I think you have an admirer_ , Ralf had said, and she bit her lip. A dangerous thought was starting to form in her head. She could feel the nerves, could feel her pulse picking up, thrumming in her veins, as he stared at her and she stared back. She was standing still, and yet she felt as though she was hurtling towards a precipice. _This is stupid_ , she thought. _This is stupid. Don’t be stupid, Gaby._ And still—

“You know,” she said flippantly, “you don’t have to keep breaking your car just to see me.”

 _Bullseye_. His eyes widened, and he shifted, readjusting his arms. Her eyes were drawn, briefly, to his belt buckle, glinting as it caught the light, and she tore her gaze quickly back to his face, unnerved. Just as she thought she’d stunned him permanently, he cleared his throat and said: “So what do I have to do?”

The air around them felt brittle; his words seemed to echo between them, back and forth, resonant in the sudden stillness. Neither of them moved. “You could take me for coffee,” she said bravely. Her nerves erupted into butterflies, fluttering against her ribcage, but she refused to look away, staring him adamantly in the eyes as his gaze flickered across her face.

“Perhaps this is not such a good idea,” he said, finally, and she pursed her lips. He was right, probably, but hearing him say it just made her want to disagree with him.

“What are you afraid of?” she said instead, taunting him on purpose, feeling strange and daring in the dark of the garage. She watched his jaw clench.

“Get dressed,” he said tightly, and pushed off the desk. She tried not to hurry as she walked to the office, conscious of his eyes on her back, watching.

When she ducked her head into the office, she found Otto inside, poring over a French car manual, a notebook on one side of it and a dictionary on the other. “I’m going out,” she said quickly, and he glanced up at her, his glasses halfway down his nose. “Just so you know.”

“Oh?” he said mildly, interlacing his broad, wrinkled hands and leaning back in his chair. “Where?”

“Coffee.”

“With who?”

“ _Bis später_ , Otto,” she said firmly, and slipped off to the bathroom. Inside, she shrugged out of her coveralls and set to work at cleaning her hands, scrubbing them until they were red. She washed her face, retied her hair, and pinched her cheeks, willing some colour back into her face. She was wearing black trousers and a white blouse; turning sideways, she tried to smooth the wrinkles out of her clothes, and suddenly felt ridiculous. It was _coffee,_ with a Russian man she barely knew, and didn’t even particularly _like_. What was she getting worked up about?

Mind made up to stay indifferent, she ducked out to put away her coveralls. She pulled on a soft green sweater and her wool coat; fumbling in her pockets, she found her gloves and a tube of lipstick, which, after a moment of hesitation, she ran quickly over her lips. Her purse, she remembered, was sitting on her desk. As she rounded the corner, smoothing her hair back once more, she found Illya Nikolayev standing next to his car—unsurprising. What _was_ surprising was that the mirror she had left sitting on her desk had been neatly reattached, as if it had never fallen off in the first place.

“What the hell is this?” she asked, torn between outrage and laughter, and he looked back at her evenly.

“Turns out it’s not so hard to fix.”

“Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head, and he raised his eyebrows at her.

“Shall we?”

 

.

 

The whole situation felt surreal. He drove them to a café further downtown in silence, parking smoothly and opening the door for her before she had the chance to do it herself. Inside, they sat down by the window, and he helped her with her coat and her chair, and she watched him slip out of his own jacket, revealing a dark polo neck sweater. When he sat down he slouched back slightly, and it wrinkled across his middle, pulling across his shoulders. She tried not to stare.

She ordered a cappuccino, he a black tea; and then they sat in silence, staring at each other.

“This is fun?” she said flatly, crossing her arms.

“It was your suggestion,” he replied, mirroring her posture.

“So we sit in silence.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, generally people _talk_ over coffee.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

She frowned at him. “Tell me,” she said. “Did somebody really break off your mirror?”

“ _Ja_.”

“But you could have fixed it yourself.”

“ _Ja_.”

“So why did you bring your car to the garage?”

He shrugged, his face betraying nothing, and she rolled her eyes. The waiter came back with their drinks, setting them carefully on the table and slipping the receipt under the ashtray. Across the room, another couple burst into laughter.

“Okay,” she tried again, rallying her patience. “Tell me something about yourself.”

“My name is Illya Nikolayev,” he said dryly. “I’m an architect, currently living in Berlin.”

She blew out a sigh, frowning at him. “You’re terrible at this.”

“At what?”

“Human interaction.” It startled a smile out him, which he hid smoothly behind a sip of tea. She felt a little thrill go through her at the quirk of his mouth, and fought to tamp it down. “What brings you to Berlin?”

“I am overseeing improvements on a section of the Protective Wall.” The pleasant feeling in her chest suddenly soured, and she glanced out the window, unable to look at him. What was she doing here, anyway? She dreamt of West Berlin, and here she was getting coffee with the literal architect of the wall shutting her out. She glanced back and conceded that he was at least a damn handsome man; he looked smart and put together in the wan light, the clean lines of his sweater suiting him. His eyes looked grey in the light of the afternoon, rimmed by improbably dark lashes, staring at her seriously.

“And how’s that going?” she asked acidly, punctuating her question with a sip of coffee. She wished it were bitterer.

“Work is work,” he said simply, perhaps sensing her shift in mood. “I go where they tell me.”

“Your German is very good,” she said, not meaning it entirely as a compliment.

“ _Danke._ ”

“Where did you learn?”

“In school.”

“In Russia?”

“ _Ja_.”

“How long will you be here?”

“Until they send me back,” he said calmly, fingering the handle of his teacup. “And you, Fräulein?”

“Gaby,” she said unthinkingly. “Call me Gaby.”

“Gaby,” he repeated, and it twisted something inside her, making her ribs feel tight. She was having coffee with a Russian architect of the Berlin wall, and instead of walking out and telling him to leave her alone, she was telling him to call her by her first name. _Gaby_ , she asked herself, _what are you doing?_

“What do you do, when you’re not fixing cars?”

“I was training for the ballet,” she said quickly. It wasn’t something she usually talked about, unless she was with her friends, or with someone she was trying to impress.

This time, she meant it as a challenge.

“Why did you stop?”

“A wall got in my way,” she said flatly, taking another sip of her coffee. His expression didn’t change, but the mood shifted, the silence taking on a new tension. “What do you think about that?”

“Unfortunate,” was all he said, his voice soft, his expression hard. His arms were crossed, his sleeves pulled up his wrists, and she noticed a watch on his left arm, ticking the seconds of silence between them steadily away. She brought her cup to her mouth and gulped down her coffee, barely tasting it, looking for a distraction. Clearly, he hadn’t shaved that morning; the shadow on his chin emphasized the cut of his jaw, the soft shape of his mouth where it was pulled into a frown. The crease between his eyebrows was deep, as though he spent a lot of time frowning, focusing; she wondered, briefly, what it was that he worried about. He looked overlarge in the café’s small wooden chair, well-dressed and out of place.

“How old are you?” she asked, suddenly curious.

“Thirty.” And that was strange too; he was neither older nor younger than she had guessed he might be, but it was odd to hear the number. It pulled him out of the realm of abstraction; turned him from a Russian stranger loitering at her garage into a real man, with a birthday and a mother and thirty years’ worth of life experience stored behind his stony façade. A man who, apparently, had nothing better to do than hang around a mechanic as she fixed his mistreated Trabant, over and over again. _I think you have an admirer_ , Ralf had said. What was Illya Nikolayev _doing_ here?

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked, setting her cup carefully onto its saucer.

“You told me to,” he replied, his voice low and unconcerned.

“You know what I mean.”

“Why did you come?”

She opened her mouth; closed it again; fiddled with the sleeve of her shirt. She watched, feeling vexed and uncomfortable, as he reached for the cheque under the ashtray, his arm flexing beneath the tight woven fabric of his sweater. She focused on not looking and stared out the window instead.

“You want to know what I think?” she said finally, watching a couple of teenagers walking across the street, holding hands and giggling to each other.

“Please.” She could see him moving out of the corner of her eye, fishing his wallet out of his jacket.

“I think you’re lonely,” she breathed, watching the glass fog up in front of her. He paused, for just a moment, and then continued counting bills as though he hadn’t. “You’ve been here—what? Two months? Three? I think you miss Russia.” Outside, the boy outside bent down to kiss the girl’s cheek. “Your country, your friends, your family. Your wife,” she added, glancing back towards him, where he was staring studiously at the table in front of him, arranging the bills neatly beneath the ashtray.

“You’re wrong,” he said, his voice as low and serious as it ever was. He looked up at her. “I’m not married.”

“Huh,” she said, and he glanced up again, expectant. “I guess we do have something in common.”

This time, he didn’t hide his smile; just rolled his eyes and shook his head, watching her carefully from across the table.

The drive back was as silent as the drive there. She alternated between staring out the window and watching him—the way he sat hunched over, his knees up on either side of the wheel. He drove like a professional, easing the car through the gears, stopping and starting almost seamlessly. His grip on the wheel, in a rare instance of whimsy, struck her as unbreakable, even as he let it skate against his palm through the turns. She looked at the hard knuckles of his hands and the fine blonde hair of his forearms, shifting as his hand flexed against the gearshift. She tried to picture his hands on a typewriter, or with a ruler, or sketching buildings with a graphite pencil, and thought it almost a shame; they were better made for building, she mused—or for breaking. She could just as easily picture them deep in the bowels of an engine as on the trigger of a rifle, his blue eyes sharp as he aimed for the target; or bruised, bloodied, grappling in a fight and winning. His profile was sharp, cold, drained of colour in the grey light; he didn’t look at her once, keeping his eyes on the road until he was parked in front of the garage.

She opened her own door, this time, and stood up to meet his eyes over the roof of the car, where he had eased his way out of his seat.

“You need a bigger car,” she said plainly, and then: “You’re a good driver, so you have no excuse. Stop breaking this piece of shit on purpose. It’s delicate.”

“I don’t break it on purpose,” he protested, and she rolled her eyes.

“Whatever. _Bis später_ , Herr Nikolayev.”

“Call me Illya,” he said, so quietly that the wind almost snatched the words away, and she frowned at him.

“Thanks for the coffee,” she said.

“It was my pleasure,” he answered, so evenly that she couldn’t know whether or not he had meant it. “Have a nice weekend.”

“ _Danke_ ,” she mumbled. She watched him get back into the car, and then watched him drive away, following the Trabbi with her eyes until it turned out of sight.

She was spending a lot of time watching him leave these days.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter count keeps growing and honestly it is ridiculous. Enjoy the third part of what was originally all going to be Chapter 1.

It took Gaby longer than usual to get to sleep that night. She felt restless and strange; her skin itched; her eyes stung. She walked in idle circles in her living room, listening to one record after another, sipping vodka from a crystal glass. They had begun to heat the building in earnest in anticipation of winter, and the hot, dry air from the vents was stifling. She had opened a window, and now luxuriated in the abrupt gusts of frigid air that hit her as she passed by it, sharp and clean against her flushed skin.

The truth was that Illya Nikolayev was keeping her awake. She couldn’t get the strange events of the day out of her head, their bizarre facsimile of a coffee date replaying in her head on a never-ending reel. What a strange man! To make himself a nuisance at her place of work, bothering her with problems he could have managed himself; to look her in the eyes and ask her what it was he had to do to see her again. And then to actually do it, to take her out to coffee—but it had been more like an ideological standoff than a social engagement. She tossed back the rest of her vodka, enjoying the familiar burn as it moved down her throat, and set the glass down gently on the coffee table, considering. She had been the farthest thing from accommodating to him; in fact, she had been harsh and impatient, and more than a little rude. She didn’t regret it. But surely there were other girls, gentler girls, who didn’t flare with anger at the slightest provocation and spit bitter words like darts at a target. She was certain that he was lonely, this strange, taciturn man, sent off to a foreign country to do a job he must know he was hated for. But what, she wondered, had he seen in her that made him come back again and again? What sort of masochist would subject himself to the way she had treated him?

And what did it say about her? She had been cold and standoffish, yes—but she had also encouraged him, blatantly inviting him to make a move. Something about him made her want to push, to pry; to work at the chinks in his stony façade until it finally cracked, until she could see what he hid so carefully beneath it. She felt simultaneously gripped by the wish to make him smile and the urge to make him angry. _If you play with fire_ , she thought dully, and resolved to try and sleep.

She woke twice in the night, roused by strange dreams, gripped with anxiety; her heart hammered in her chest as she lay in bed, willing herself to relax. She could hear the rumble of the occasional car driving past down below, echoing in the spaces between buildings. She tossed and turned, closed the curtains, wandered into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. The night stretched long and quiet. She prayed for sleep.

At work the next day, she felt the childish thrill of having a secret. She glanced up anytime somebody walked into the garage, and ignored Otto’s knowing look as he passed by her station. She sat at her desk to eat lunch—a meager sandwich she had improvised from the contents of her barren kitchen—and thought of the way Illya Nikolayev had looked, leaning against that very same table, his belt glinting, his ankles crossed, watching her work with sharp, unerring eyes.

He didn’t come by that day, and she didn’t really expect him to. But she didn’t see him the next day, or the day after, either. She kept her cool until the fourth day, and then her annoyance burst forth like water from a dam, flooding her with resentment. Who did he think he was, anyway? Coming and going as he pleased; taking her out for coffee one day and then disappearing the next. Her fury grew as the day wore on, until she found herself stomping up the stairs to her flat, grinding her teeth and fuming. Decidedly, she grabbed the phone and rang Hilde, inviting her to see a play on Friday, _and Josef too, Hilde, of course._

Illya Nikolayev could take his sweet time working up the decency to call her, she decided. In fact, he could drop off the face of the Earth for all she cared. She had better things to do.

 

.

 

If Gaby was honest with herself, she had been expecting it for a long time.

Insomnia was an old friend of hers, and the anxieties that gripped her in the dark of her bedroom were nothing new; but there was a reason she almost never slept through the night anymore. Lately, she was hearing noises that weren’t there; seeing shadows where there were none. More than once, she had stumbled out of bed, terrified, only to realize that the knocks she had heard had sounded only in her dreams; that the voices on the other side of the wall were nothing more sinister than the sound of her neighbour’s radio.

That was why, when they first pounded on her door, for a moment, she was certain she was imagining things.

She was getting ready to meet Hilde and Josef. The blue dress she’d put on was old, but flattering, falling to just below her knees. Her nicest coat was too thin for the weather, but, she thought grimly, it would have to do. She was just finishing with her hair, arranging the curl of her ponytail over her shoulder, when the knock sounded from the front door.

 _Strange,_ she thought. _I thought we were meeting at the theatre._

She dropped her coat onto the back of the sofa on her way across the apartment, and was almost at the door when the knock sounded again, followed by a male voice yelling “Open up!”

It was as though a switch had been flipped; she was suddenly seized with panic. Her throat closed up; her whole body froze, her muscles strung tight with terror. The knocking came again, and without thinking she dropped to the ground, throwing herself towards the wooden vitrine against the wall. There were more voices outside, now, but she couldn’t make out their words over the rush of blood in her ears. Her focus narrowed to one desperate task as she slid the bottom drawer out with painstaking care, pulling it entirely off its runners and laying it on the floor with unsteady hands. She reached into the empty space in the vitrine for the hollow in the back corner, and closed her hand against the cold metal of a gun.

She nearly dropped it as the knocking started again, more insistently than before; when suddenly it cut off entirely, and she focused enough to hear a man say: “Hold on. This is the wrong apartment.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s that one.”

There was a pause.

“Are you sure?”

“ _Schmidt_ is over there.”

“This is also _Schmidt_.”

“It’s the wrong door.”

She scrambled across the floor into the dimmest corner of her little kitchen, pushing blindly backwards until her back hit the corner where the wall met the cabinets. She could feel her heart hammering, could hear her pulse racing in her ears, and tried to find middle ground between gasping for air and holding her breath. She couldn’t feel her limbs. The gun in her hand was shaking. Her whole body was shaking.

Through the door, she could hear shouting. Her neighbour was trying to put up a fight; a woman was screaming. Gaby couldn’t make the words out over the noise of her own panic. She could hear commotion through the wall of her kitchen now, too; a dog was barking in the apartment next door. No one had been arrested in their building in years.

 _It takes so little,_ she would think later, _to ruin the illusion of safety._

All of a sudden there was a sharp crack, and a sound like a body slumping to the ground. The woman screamed again; she was drowned out by a man barking orders.

 _This is it,_ she thought, dreadfully, deliriously certain. In a moment they would realize they had the wrong man; that the man they were looking for was actually the girl down the hall, cowering against the wall in her kitchen, a pistol clutched uselessly in her hand. Her fingers had grown numb. She couldn’t imagine pulling the trigger—couldn’t imagine much of anything, really, except the sound her door would make when they broke it down, which they would be doing any minute now, she was sure of it. She remained convinced of her impending arrest even as she heard the noise of doors being shut, of the men moving away, down the stairs, out of the building; even as the sobs of the woman faded slowly into silence, until all that was left was the ringing memory of what had transpired.

There was no clock in her kitchen, and she didn’t know how long she lay on the floor. It had grown darker; the apartment was lit by only the faintest dregs of greyish light. Slowly, she became aware of the world around her, of the mundane furnishings of her home. She took note of the colour of the walls, the sheen of the floor, and the texture of the cabinet wood, smooth against her shoulder. The gun was cool and impossible heavy on her palm, strange and daunting where it lay clutched in her hand. She was cold, she realized; cold from her place on the kitchen tiles, and from the strangling terror that had kept her seated there.

The phone rang. She stifled a scream, jerking up against the wall, and pressed a hand to her chest, where her heart beat heavy against her ribs. Her mind raced, her thoughts spinning like tires in the snow as the shrill ringing echoed through the apartment. Who was calling? Did she answer the phone? Maybe they were trying to find her out, to catch her, prove that she was home after all. Who was calling? How would she get to the phone? What if they were watching?

 _Hilde_ , she realized sluggishly. _I was supposed to meet Hilde. I’m late._

She lurched to her feet—her right foot was asleep—and stumbled across the living room, grabbing the phone off the hook. “ _Hallo?_ ”

“ _Gaby? Where the hell are you?_ ” There was noise on Hilde’s end of the line, like she was in the middle of a crowd. She was calling from the theatre, then.

“Um, I—um—“ She glanced nervously at the window, peering through the gap between the curtains.

“ _Gaby_?”

“Sorry, I was—uh—asleep.”

Hilde sighed. “ _We were worried. The show started almost an hour ago_.”

“Sorry.” She tugged the curtains shut.

“ _Are you alright? You sound strange_.”

“I’m just—I’m not feeling well. I think I have a fever,” she said, with a sudden stroke of inspiration. “I meant to call, but I thought a nap might help. I lost track of time, I’m sorry.”

“ _It’s fine. Do you have everything you need? Do you want us to come by?_ ”

“No,” she said immediately, and then choked down a deep breath, forcing herself to relax. “No, there’s no reason for both of us to be miserable.” She tried to laugh, but it fizzled out in her throat.

_“It’s really no trouble.”_

“I’m fine, really. Frau Dreschner brought over some soup, and I think I’m already feeling better.”

_“Call me tomorrow, then. I’ll come by if you’re still unwell.”_

“ _Danke_.”

_“Bitte. I don’t like you all the way across town by yourself, like that.”_

“I know.”

_“Well, we’ll talk tomorrow. Get some sleep, yeah?”_

“I’ll try.”

“ _Ciao_.”

“ _Tchüss_.”

The line went dead, and she slowly placed the receiver back in its cradle, the click sounding impossibly loud in the stillness of her flat. Her heart was still beating insistently, her breath coming fast and harsh in the silence. _Well_ , she thought carefully. _You survived._

She looked around. Her coat was where she had left it, thrown across the back of the sofa, and her instincts told her to grab it and get the hell out as fast as her feet would carry her. The feeling was strong, but she summoned the willpower to tamp it down.

 _No_. She knew what she had to do. She had, after all, been trained for this.

Gaby had spent months carefully not thinking about it, about any of it: the Englishman with the glasses and the wry smile; the radio codes; the photographs; the pistol in her vitrine.

“Standard issue,” the man had said mildly, presenting her with it. “Browning Hi-Power. Excellent in a pinch, although I don’t suppose you’ll have reason to use it. Still, better to be prepared, isn’t it?”

She had hidden it away and promptly forced herself to forget about it. Probably nothing would come of it, he had told her. She was simply to wait and see if anybody suspicious starting sniffing around, and then follow the proper procedure to alert the right authorities. A sleeper agent. _Go about your business as usual_ , he had said, _and do try not to lose too much sleep over it_.

But things were different now.

She had been made to memorize a phone number; now, with trembling hands, she lifted the receiver and dialed slowly, pushing the wheel around in the order she had been taught.

A woman answered the phone on the second ring. “ _Hallo_?”

“Hi,” she said hesitantly, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. “Uh—it’s Gaby.”

_“What can I do for you, Gaby?”_

“My father visited today.”

_“Did he stay long?”_

“ _I’m afraid we missed each other,_ ” she choked out. The bravado she had mustered in talking to Hilde had vanished as quickly as it had come; to her frustration, her voice trembled as she spoke.

“ _That’s too bad_ ,” the woman responded coolly. “ _Do you know when he’ll be back?_ ”

“He didn’t say.”

_“I’ll ask him and let you know.”_

“ _Dankeschön_.” Off book, but the knowledge that there was somebody on the other end of the line looking out for her was invaluable to her at that moment. Thanks seemed like the least she could offer.

“ _Bitte_.” Also off book. “ _Anything else_?”

She paused, biting her lip. “No, that’s all.”

_“I’ll be in touch. Gute Nacht, Gaby.”_

_“Auf Wiederhören.”_

Afterwards, it was impossible to relax. She was terrified both of staying in her flat and leaving it; she moved between the bedroom and the living room, alternately feeling too exposed and too insulated. She tried putting on a record, hoping it would distract her, but the music only made her worry that she wouldn’t hear them if they came again. Instead, she sat huddled on the sofa in silence, jumping at every noise outside the window or beyond the door. After half a bottle of vodka she fell mercifully asleep, sprawled out with a blanket half on top of her, her arm hanging off the edge. She woke to the sight of sunshine filtering through the remaining liquor, and to the glint of the gun on the coffee table, in arm’s reach, where she had left it.

 

.

 

She called Hilde around noon, as she’d promised she would, and despite her best efforts couldn’t dissuade her from coming over. The hangover she was nursing must have given her the appearance of someone recovering from a serious illness, because all it took was one look on the doorstep for Hilde to click her tongue and say “ _Gaby_ ”.

Gaby had remembered to hide the gun but had not thought to put away the vodka, and Hilde’s frown deepened as she swept into the living room and saw it. “ _Really_ , Gaby. Have you been drinking this all yourself?”

“Not all of us have a legally bound drinking partner,” she quipped weakly, but Hilde was having none of it.

“You _have_ to take better care of yourself. Have a bath. I’ll put the kettle on.”

Hilde was not much of a housekeeper, as Josef’s mother was known to bemoan; but by the time Gaby had had her bath and brushed her teeth, her friend had managed to clean the kitchen and sweep the floor. The curtains were tied back to let in the afternoon light; two cups of tea were steaming merrily on the coffee table. The sunny normality of it all felt unreal; or perhaps it was the events from the night before that were drifting into unreality. It seemed impossible to her that a man could have been disappeared from his home on the eve of a day such as this.

“Gaby, you look just like Margret did that time that man flashed her in the park. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said snippily. Hilde gave her a look.

“Okay,” she drawled. “Fine. Let me tell you who we saw with Ana Warner at the theatre last night.”

Hilde chattered and Gaby tried her best to feign interest. The hangover and the leftover shock of the night before had left her in some kind of stupor; it was as much as she could do nod and smile, and ask the occasional obvious question. Her tea had grown cold before she thought to drink it.

“And she just moved on without a second thought—can you believe her?” Hilde was saying. “That reminds me—whatever happened to that Russian of yours?”

“What?”

“The Russian. Nikolitch, or whatever.”

“Nikolayev.”

“So you do know who I’m talking about.” Of course she did—but it felt strange to be talking about him, today of all days, in her own living room. With the events of the night before, she had practically forgotten him. “Is he still bothering you?”

“Um—no.” She looked down at her tea, swirling the cup thoughtfully. Was their little coffee date—if it could even be called a ‘date’—even worth mentioning? After all, it would probably never happen again. She hadn’t heard from him in almost a week. And, more to the point, she wasn’t sure she could really explain any of it to Hilde—or, she realized suddenly, if she even wanted to.

She compromised by admitting: “He asked me out.”

Hilde’s expression, which had been teasing, suddenly darkened. “Wait, what?”

“Last week.”

“Did you say yes?” she demanded, her eyebrows rising, and Gaby knew, in that moment, that it would be senseless to tell her the whole story.

“Of course not,” she lied, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and Hilde’s frown relaxed slightly.

“Good. It’s all nice and fine to have a handsome architect flirt with you—“

“I never said he was good-looking—“

“But listen, Gaby, the Stasi made a ton of arrests last night,” she said seriously, lowering her voice out of habit. “Nobody’s talking about it straight, but they are, really, if you listen. Wolfgang hasn’t heard from his brother in days. I know you like a little excitement once in a while—“

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gaby interjected, annoyed.

“You know what I mean,” Hilde sighed. “The racing—test driving—whatever it is you do; the drinking; all that black market shit you get up to.”

“As if _you’ve_ never listened to a banned record.”

“Of course I have, but the point is that I think you enjoy it too much. You’re not going to free East Germany by getting yourself arrested for pirating records. Or stealing cars, for that matter.”

“What’s your point?” Gaby asked icily.

“Look, don’t be angry,” Hilde said imploringly, putting her teacup down and scooting towards her on the sofa. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to start a fight, really. I’m just saying—look, I get it. Everything’s been shit since August. Before that, even. It feels good to live a little, I _know_. But this Russian guy, for example—yes, I know you said no, it’s just an example—he’s not some nobody, okay, he’s an important man who could get your ass thrown in prison for any one of your less-than-legal hobbies faster than you can say Elvis Presley.” She paused, tugging on her necklace absentmindedly. “I’m just saying that if you’re going to take these risks, please, please be careful. And for god’s sake, don’t start getting friendly with any Russians.”

 

.

 

Gaby had stayed at work late, later than anybody else, working stubbornly at a cooling system that just wouldn’t behave itself. She missed the last metro by half an hour, and set out walking; she had been feeling wired and restless, lately, and relished the opportunity to clear her head. It was mild for December, the late night air still and crisp; it fogged in puffs as she hurried along the dark, familiar streets that led home. She’d made the walk before, even late at night, but tonight every stray sound was turning her head, pulling on her already frayed nerves.

She had been trying to get back to normal in the days since the arrest, but it had been hard. Sleep was harder to find than ever—every noise startled her awake, her heart racing, her breath coming in gasps. She was haunted by vivid images of being hauled off and locked away in some forgotten prison; or worse, buried behind one, her name, like her crimes, erased from the record and forgotten. Work offered a reprieve, but false comfort only went so far. She was desperately waiting for a phone call from London, even if it was only to confirm the worst. At least then she would know what she was in for.

She heard the car approaching before she ever saw the headlights, and tried to keep her pace steady, telling herself it was nothing. _Everyone in Berlin isn’t after you_ , she told herself, _don’t be ridiculous_ —and yet, the car slowed as it approached, throwing her shadow far ahead of her on the sidewalk. She hurried faster, the heels of her shoes clicking sharply against the pavement, and it rumbled after her, slowing to a crawl beside her. She refused to look at it, her heart hammering in her chest from nerves and exhaustion, and focused on walking as fast as she could without breaking into a run. The car stopped; she pulled ahead; and then, over the sound of a car door being opened, she heard a familiar voice yell out her name.

“Gaby!” His shout cut straight across the buzzing of the engine, and she stopped in her tracks, spinning to face him. She was half-blinded by the headlights, and could only barely make out his outline, silhouetted against the streetlights behind him; even so, there was no mistaking Illya Nikolayev, his hand on the car door and his feet on the pavement, stopped at the side of the road. With all that had happened in the last week, she had almost forgotten him. “Can I drive you home?”

She blinked at him owlishly for a few moments, stunned by the headlights, and then marched over towards him, clutching her coat tightly around her. “What’s wrong with you?” she snapped. “Following women in your car at night. You nearly scared me to death.”

“I wasn’t sure it was you,” he replied, as though it were perfectly natural than he should happen upon her walking around, alone, at close to two in the morning, and offer to drive her home.  As she passed the headlights and drew level with the car, he suddenly came into focus, hard textures and lines filling in his dark outline. His face was half lit up by stark light, half thrown in shadow by the brim of his cap; it gave his features an eerie definition, lending him the appearance of a disapproving statue. “Do you need a ride?”

“I can walk.”

“This will be faster.”

“I’m not in a hurry.”

“It’s not safe.”

“I can take care of myself.”

He made an exasperated sound, loud and unexpected, and she tried not to let the surprise show on her face. “Still,” he said, an edge to his voice. “This is better.”

It _was_ late, and it was cold, and she was tired. “Fine,” she bit out, and he nodded at her before folding himself back into the car.

He took off almost as soon as she closed the door, creeping steadily down the street. She eyed him carefully as her lingering annoyance was overtaken by a different kind of consternation.

"Are you stalking me?"

"No."

“Are you sure?”

He didn’t even smile; just looked grimly at the road and shifted into third gear. “ _Ja_.”

“So you just happened to recognize me on the street.”

“Exactly.”

“It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

“I would not be surprised if you were the only girl in this entire neighbourhood outside at this hour.” There was hot, dry air blowing in through the vents; he had cracked open his window to let in a cooler breeze. She did the same on her side, pushing the handle around half a turn, and she saw his eyes dart to her hand, his attention caught by the motion. His stare was intense in the dark, his eyes piercing; she felt the back of her hand prickling as he eyed it.

“And you?” she asked, pulling her gloves off. “What are you doing up and about?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said tightly, his knuckles shifting against the steering wheel as he made a careful turn.

“Me neither.”

He clicked his tongue at her. “You were at work.”

“How do you know that?”

“Why else would you be in this part of city at night?” He took a left, his feet working the pedals with a practised ease as he shifted gears; the car followed the line of the curb with a mathematical precision. She regarded him curiously. He said he couldn’t sleep, but he was fully dressed, with a hat and everything, crawling through the city in a Trabant. It hardly seemed like a relaxing pursuit.

“I haven’t told you where I live,” she realized suddenly, pursing her lips. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“You’ve mentioned the metro stop. I don’t know the address.”

“And you remembered?”

“I have a good memory.”

The light ahead of them turned amber, and he slowed gently to a stop. The roads were empty as far as she could see; they were the only car in the intersection. The light turned red.

"You drive like an old man," she said idly.

He gave her a strange look, eyeing her seriously. "How so?"

"I've never seen somebody drive so slowly. The streets are empty, you know."

“You would rather I drove recklessly?"

“I’m not complaining,” she said lightly, glancing away from him and out the window. "It's just that walking might’ve been faster after all.” She looked back at him, hungry for his reaction, and was rewarded with a sharp exhale as he pressed his lips together. “It's strange," she continued. "You don't seem nervous. You drive like a professional."

“Like a chauffeur?” It was the first glimmer of humour he had shown her all night. The light turned green; the engine stuttered as he eased onto the gas. She watched him shift up another gear with interest, taking in the practised motion, the surety with which he scanned the road and handled the wheel.

“Like you could have been a race car driver,” she said, “if you weren’t so afraid to open the throttle.”

“Do you know many race car drivers?”

“I _am_ a race car driver,” she replied casually, and he glanced at her, his eyes widening slightly. “A test driver, anyway. When I can find the work. They don’t really like to lets girls play.”

“Would you like to?” he asked, and there was something different in his voice now: a flicker of life, the promise of a dare.

“What?”

“Play.”

The car rounded another corner, and then he slowed to a stop, shifting into neutral and leaving the engine running. He met her eyes in the dark. He was almost unrecognizable as the man from the coffee shop, the garage; the hesitancy, the awkwardness, they had all but disappeared. _A creature of the night_ , she thought, as he jerked the door open and stepped out of the car. She sat in her seat, confused, until he came around to her side and opened the door. His face loomed above her, serious and harsh-looking, the jagged scar on his temple lending him a wild air. “Well?” he said, his teeth flashing white. “Show me how it’s done.”

She frowned at him, and then scooted over to the driver’s side. The seat was pushed all the way back; she dropped into it and wrestled it forward until she could press her feet flat behind the pedals. The gear shift was warm where his palm had lain; she wrapped her other hand around the wheel, testing the distance, and then reached up to adjust the mirror. She caught a flash of his reflection as she coaxed it into place, his blue eyes steely, focused. He had one leg stretched out as best as he could and the other leaned up against the door; his arms were crossed against his chest as he leaned back into his seat, waiting.

“Shall I drive home, then?”

He shrugged, staring ahead. “It’s your show.”

“What, should I just go wild?”

“Are you afraid?”

She frowned at the road in front of her, wary of looking at him. Instead, she checked the side mirror and then moved into first gear, setting off at a crawl down the street.  “The police don’t look too kindly on racing in the streets,” she offered.

“You don’t strike me as a person who worries too much about police.”

“Well,” she murmured. “It’s been a difficult week.”

It was the truth. It had been so long since her life had been touched by the Stasi that she had half-convinced herself she was invincible; but her neighbour’s arrest had awakened a terror in her so great that now, she was able to think of little else but the danger her position put her in. Just imagining police lights flashing in the rear view mirror was making her pulse thrum quicker in her veins. She realized, with a start, that she didn’t even _know_ this Illya Nikolayev man—not really. Children had been known to inform on their own parents—what was to stop him from informing on a girl who, in effect, was nothing but a stranger to him?

She chanced another glance at him, and almost against her will her stare was snared by his own hungry eyes; the expression on his face was like a personal challenge to rise to the occasion. It was as if he had led her to a cliff and was now coaxing her down into the darkness. She had no reason to trust him.

He lifted his eyebrows. She took the plunge.

The engine roared as she floored the accelerator. The Trabant was a shit car, but a car she knew well; and as she hurtled around corners and down narrow streets, she realized that this was what she had needed, what she had missed so sorely in the last few days: control. In a car, she knew what she was doing. She pumped the clutch and shifted down to second to take a left, then glided back up to fourth, the engine like a live thing beneath her feet. Berlin flew past them, a blur outside the window. A hard turn came up on their right; she pulled the handbrake, wrenched the wheel around, and released the brake with a great squealing of tires, and then they were zooming down another city street, the axles shuddering against the uneven pavement.

She glanced back at Illya only once. He was leaning back in his seat, completely unconcerned, his stare focused only on her. She forced her eyes back on the road.

By the time she slowed down in front of her apartment, she was breathing hard, and feeling more like herself than she had in days. She felt wide awake in a way she hadn’t in a long time. Everything was crisp, like it was in hyper-focus. She pulled the parking brake and cut the engine, and in the sudden stillness felt excruciatingly aware of the size of him, and the very little distance between them.

Illya was still looking at her.

“What?” she snapped.

“You drive like a demon.”

“It’s not very polite to call a girl demonic.”

He seemed to consider for a moment, tipping his head back. “What are demons but fallen angels?”

She laughed, startled, and he raised his eyebrows at her playfully. It was strange to laugh; she felt the tension in her loosen its hold, ever so slightly. “That’s terrible,” she said reproachfully, and he shrugged. “Really terrible. I should have you arrested.”

“The true crime here is one of engineering. I’ll never understand how they got this piece of shit into production.” He slapped his palm against the dashboard to emphasize his point, and she marveled at him swearing so easily; he, who had always been so painstakingly formal, so carefully put together. His watch glinted beneath the streetlights: one fifty-five.

Later, she wouldn’t know whether it was the hour, or the adrenaline, or the week’s worth of terror that pushed her to say it; but, in a sudden burst of madness, she turned to him and demanded: “Why didn’t you call me?”

He froze in his seat, his face falling into a troubled expression. With the engine off, the air around them was rapidly cooling. She reached for the window handle and turned it distractedly, shutting out the winter wind. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice quiet and low. “I was…unsure.”

“Unsure?”

He shot her a sideways glance. “As to whether or not it was a good idea.”

She frowned at him. Her hands were cold; she fumbled in her pocket for her gloves. “That’s a strange thing to hear,” she said finally, tugging one on with a bit more force than she would have used otherwise, “from a man who just goaded me into racing through a city.”

“I did not goad you into anything,” he protested.

“ _Are you afraid_?” she asked, her voice dropping into a bizarre parody of his. He opened his mouth, to argue or to defend himself, but she cut him off. “Listen, Illya Nikolayev. I have better things to do than wait around for you to figure out whatever it is that you’re unsure about.” He stared at her, his mouth in a hard line. “You can’t just drop in and out of my life whenever you please. I don’t want you hanging around the garage anymore.”

His eyes hardened. “I understand,” he said heavily, and leaned away from her, but she stopped him by rolling her eyes.

“You don’t. Look—it’s ridiculous that you know where I work and where I live, and all I have is your office phone number. So you’re going to give me your phone number. Your real one.”

His expression was hard as stone, except for his eyes, which looked almost—well, _anguished_ was a strong word, but it wasn’t far off the mark. He reached up to adjust his hat; against his thigh, the fingers of his other hand were tapping an anxious rhythm. She turned to face him, pulling her knee up onto the seat, and stared him down until, with a hard exhale, he relented.

“Do you have a pen?” he mumbled. He produced a small notepad from beneath the dashboard and tore out a sheet while she dug a pen out of her purse; when she handed it to him he avoided her eyes and her fingers, plucking it gingerly from her grip and turning to write against the dashboard.

Walking up the stairs to her flat, after Illya had slid back into the driver’s seat and roared off into the night, she looked thoughtfully at the slip of lined paper, tracing the numbers with her eyes—clear and nondescript, his writing textbook-neat. He had held it out to her with obvious misgiving, and she had made sure to brush her fingers against his as she took it, just to see his expression flicker.

She would probably never call him, she reasoned. She didn’t even know why she had asked for his phone number, really. But the prospect of him disappearing again, fading off into some corner of the city with no warning, unnerved her. She knew she couldn’t have guarantees; but, she thought, unlocking the door and pushing into her warm, dark apartment, it was nice to have options.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was very difficult to write. Sorry about the hold up. The next one should be done soon!

“You look worn out,” Ralf said, balancing a grin on his face and two glasses of _Schnaps_ in his hand. Or at least, Gaby assumed that was what he said before she asked him to repeat himself. He leaned in close on the second go, shouting into her ear to be heard over the music.

“Somebody has to get some work done,” she countered, grabbing one of the proffered glasses. “ _Prost._ ”

“ _Prost_ ,” he echoed. He held her eye as he clinked their glasses, then watched her with interest as she swallowed hers in one go. “In a hurry?”

“To end this conversation,” she snapped, but there wasn’t much bite to it. It was far from her first drink of the night, and the alcohol was softening her, lightening her; she didn’t have the heft to start a real fight.

“You wanna dance?”

“In a minute.”

She handed him back her empty glass and turned towards the bar. There, at a table to the left, were a handful of her friends: Margret in Frank’s lap, her toes tapping frantic time against the legs of his chair; Josef lighting Wolfgang’s cigarette, his hair falling across his forehead, his tie half-undone; and Gertrud and her new boyfriend, Johannes or Johen or something-or-other, necking as though they were completely alone, and not in the middle of a crowded room. She waved at Josef; he caught her eye and pointed to the undulating mass of people to her left, where she spotted Hilde dancing a frantic jitterbug with Ingrid, her hair loose around her face, her blouse stuck to her back with sweat.

Ralf was already wading out onto the floor. She slipped behind him, weaving between flailing limbs and grinding bodies, looking for enough space to let loose. The bass player was picking an unbelievable beat; the drummer was an animal, thrashing the cymbals like his life depended on it, mercilessly driving the music with a frantic _rat-a-tat_ on the snare. She followed Ralf to the foot of the stage, where the lead guitarist was stomping his foot and howling into the microphone, and sidled up to Ingrid and Hilde, picking up their rhythm and letting it bring her body to life. She was hot already. The entire room was warm, but the dancefloor was sweltering, packed with people dancing, possessed by the music. These were the moments that brought her closest to what she might call _peace_ : these moments when she was born again, fervently alive under the influence of great music, alcohol and rock and roll bringing her higher and higher, out of her body, out of this world.

Tonight, however, the exaltation would not come. She could still feel the burn the _Schnaps_ had left on its way down her throat. When she closed her eyes, she stumbled, stepping on toes and into flailing limbs. When she opened them, she felt surrounded, cornered by grotesque creatures contorting their bodies in the darkness. Still, she danced, trying to join the fray, to lose herself in the crowd. Hilde had her face to the ceiling, her mouth open in rapture; Ingrid was dancing with her brother, letting Ralf spin her around and around, laughing as he lifted her into the air.

Gaby felt the thrum of the guitar and let it guide her body; she felt a hand on hers and let herself be pulled into a dance with a stranger. Still, she felt frustratingly _present_. She felt every bump and misstep, was aware of the sweat running down her back, her bangs sticking to her brow. Somewhere near the bar, someone popped open a bottle of sparkling wine, and she jumped at the sound, her heart hammering in her throat. _Relax_ , she told herself angrily. The man she was with spun her once, twice; her body had stopped spinning, but her head had not. People crowded in, pressing against them, jostling her. Bile rose in her throat. “Excuse me,” she shouted, and jerked out of his grip, stumbling through the crowd, trying to remember where the door was. Her head was throbbing in time with the beat. She needed fresh air.

She burst into the night and stumbled up the concrete steps to the street, where she leaned back against the wall of the building and caught her breath. The wall was cold against her bare shoulders; she felt her hair catching on the brick as she tilted her head up to the sky. She pulled winter air into her lungs in great gasps and willed herself to calm down. She had been looking forward to this night all week, had jumped at the chance to go out with her friends, to feel normal again; and now, when she was finally here, she desperately wanted to be anywhere but.

 _Get a grip,_ she thought viciously. She loved music. She _loved_ dancing. What had come over her?

Whatever it was, try as she might, she couldn’t shake it. She said her goodbyes, ignoring her friends’ protests, and set out into the night, the _pop_ of the wine bottle echoing in her ears.

It seemed like she was always the first to leave, these days, no matter where she went. More and more, she was declining invitations out of hand, avoiding phone calls, making excuses. She knew that her friends were frustrated and concerned – and also, she suspected, offended – that she was so obviously avoiding them. They said things like ‘ _do you have to?’_ and ‘ _are you sure?’_ and ‘ _well, what do_ you _feel like doing, then?’_ – but what Gaby couldn’t explain was that she didn’t feel like doing _anything_ anymore. Before, going out had been exciting. She had enjoyed nights on the town, listening to good music, drinking until her head spun, dancing wildly deep into the night; but things were different now.

Ever since the latest sweep of political arrests, she’d been nervous at home, and positively skittish in public. She was always half-expecting to be seized, handcuffed, and dragged away, never to be heard from again. It was like she had emerged from a dream into an even darker nightmare. She had avoided thinking of the British man, and the codes, and the mission for as long as she could – now, suddenly, she could hardly think of anything else. Every move she made felt conspicuous, dangerous. Walking home from the club, she couldn’t help but turn her head at every noise, speed up past every darkened corner. She had hoped that the feeling would pass as time went on, but it only grew worse the longer she waited for news. She was starting to understand why informants turned themselves in; living like this was exhausting.

What made it worse was that she still wasn’t sure it was worth it. Months ago, when MI6 had come calling, they had promised her amnesty. “Two years,” the man had said. “Two years, and then we’ll get you to the West.” But that had been before the wall, when it had been easy to move through the soft border of Berlin. Now, she wasn’t sure they would keep their promise, which meant she could be risking arrest, imprisonment, and death, for nothing. Then again, she thought bitterly, perhaps death would not be the worst thing. Otherwise, she would have to grow old in East Berlin.

Yes, the fear was wearing on her; but beneath that lay a bigger problem – monotony. Everything was the same, day in, day out; her life had lost its lustre. When people talked about the wall, as people often did, she always said that what she missed most about life before was the ballet; but what they didn’t understand was that it wasn’t the dancing that she missed – it was the challenge. Dance had inspired her to push herself, to put in the effort and attain what seemed unattainable. Locked out of West Berlin, she had no more interest in grand jetés and fish dives. All she had left was anger: relentless, implacable, consuming. She was angry that she had been born too many kilometres to the East; angry that her only hope for escape was what amounted to espionage; angry that she was being used as bait, a pretty lure to trap unsuspecting Germans and Russians. Pretty soon, she thought, there would nothing left of her but fury.

Unbidden, the image of Illya Nikolayev rose in her mind. Hilde had once joked that he might be a secret agent, and she had dismissed it, waved it off – but the joke was less funny now. The truth was, Gaby didn’t really know anything about him aside from what he had told her. He might not be an architect at all. Illya Nikolayev might not be his real name. Indeed, every word out of his mouth might have been a trick, a lie, and she would have no way of knowing. Still – if he _was_ some sort of secret informant, sent from Moscow to spy on her, he was doing a terrible job. He hadn’t come by the garage since the night he had driven her home, hadn’t so much as called. And yeah, she had told him not to drop in on her anymore. But if he was collecting information on her for some nefarious purpose, avoiding her completely seemed a foolish way to go about it.

Now there, she thought, was a challenge. Illya Nikolayev, the perfect mystery. The man with the forever-broken car, which had turned out not to be so broken after all; the man who had gone out of his way to see her, only to take her on the world’s most ambiguous coffee date. And then, there had been that look in his eyes as he’d handed over his number, trying desperately to convey some message she’d been unable to decipher. She could still feel the brush of his fingers, cool and rough, as she’d taken the slip of paper from him.

 _Would you like to play?_ he had asked her, his voice close and deep in the front of his car. She didn’t know the answer. She had told him to stay away, to wait for her call – the ball was in her court. But was it even worth the effort? Sure, she was curious about the man, but curiosity could only get her so far. She wasn’t even sure that she _liked_ him. What could come of it but trouble?

 

.

 

The phone rang at ten o’clock; she was barely awake, dozing under the covers, when the ring startled her out of bed. She hurtled out of her bedroom and into the living room, grabbed the receiver off its hook, and pressed it anxiously to her ear.

“ _Hallo_?” She was out of breath, she noticed absently, pushing her hair out of her face.

“ _Is the party still on Friday_?” asked a cool, female voice, and she swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.

“ _Ja_ ,” she replied, “it won’t rain until Sunday.”

“ _Pick me up at the train station_ ,” the woman said. “ _Bis bald_.” The line clicked into silence.

It was a bright December morning. The streets were full of people: walking, shopping, and enjoying the rare winter sunshine. With her coat unbuttoned and a scarf pulled tight around her neck, she hurried down the street and caught the metro to Friedrichstraße Station. The journey was excruciating. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched, followed, and so she stared hard at the floor, forcing herself not to look around. The station, when she arrived, was as crowded as ever; the hustle of passengers through its many doors and levels was relentless. She made her way to a line of payphones, where she caught herself looking nervously over her shoulder, and had to wrench her eyes forward.

 _Relax_ , she told herself firmly, and took a deep breath, stepping into the second booth from the left. She dug as much change as she could find out of her purse and slid the coins into the slot, then carefully dialled the phone number she had been made to memorize and recite, over and over again, until she knew it as well as her own. It rang for not long at all before a different voice answered, a man this time, and she knew it to be Waverley, despite the unaccented German he spoke.

“ _Hallo?_ ”

“It’s me.”

“ _So it is. How are you_?”

“Fine,” she said tensely. A middle-aged man with an old-fashioned hat and moustache stepped into the next booth over. She turned her back to him. “Any news?” she asked, and held her breath.

“ _Yes, I’ve made a few calls. It turns out your father wasn’t in Berlin to see you the other week—he had other business to take care of_.”

“Does he have my address?”

“ _No, I believe he’s misplaced it_.”

“Thank you,” she said, the words coming out in a great rush of air. “Thank you.”

“ _My pleasure_. _Let me know if there’s any more trouble_.”

“ _Auf Wiederhören_ ,” she said, and the line clicked into silence. She stood there for longer than she should have, leaning against the wall, cradling the phone to her ear, watching the people milling around her. _They hadn’t found her_. _She was safe_. She kept repeating it back to herself, unable to quite believe it. It seemed too easy, too simple, somehow. She still felt unnerved, and exposed, standing in such a public place, making phone calls to— _God_ , to the British secret service. She felt chills all over again, her breath stuttering unevenly in her lungs. The phone chirped and she jumped. It had felt like forever, but now that she thought about it, the call must have lasted less than a minute. She had shoved all her change into the slot, too anxious to count; now, there were minutes left on the timer.

It was the weekend; most of her friends would probably be free. She thought of calling Elsa – they could go to a Christmas Market, pregnant women liked that sort of thing – but no; Elsa and Franz were visiting his sister in the country. Hilde would be free, and so would Margret and Frank – but then they would ask her why she had left so early the other night, and she would have no explanation to offer them, and would have to make up another story about being ill, and watch them frown at each other over her head. Today, she simply didn’t have the will.

Sliding her hand idly into her pocket, her fingers brushed up against a scrap of paper. She pulled it out slowly, knowing immediately what it was: Illya’s phone number, printed evenly in his straight, precise handwriting. She fingered the edge of it, holding the receiver against her shoulder. Before she quite knew what she was doing, she was dialling his number, the paper shaking in her hand.

It rang twice before he answered. “ _Hallo?_ ”

“Illya? It’s Gaby.”

“ _Gaby?_ ” There was a fumbling noise, and then silence for a moment, before he said: “ _What’s wrong_?”

“Nothing,” she answered, strangely miffed. “Why should something be wrong?”

“ _I thought—you sounded—nevermind._ ” Static fizzled in her ear, filling the silence between them. “ _How are you?”_ he asked finally, and she smiled despite herself, turning her head to lean her brow against the wall.

“I’m fine,” she said dryly, and left it at that. She half-expected him to hang up, or at least break the silence; instead, she could hear him breathing, faintly but steadily, as he waited. She hadn’t taken the time to figure out what she would say if he picked up the phone; she cast about for a topic, half-enjoying the silence, half-wishing he would say something himself.  “A women complimented me on my gloves yesterday. She asked me where I got them.”

” _What did you say?_ ”

“That they were a gift. From a friend.”

“ _They are from Geneva._ ”

“Exotic.”

“ _It’s not so far._ ”

“Not for everyone, I suppose.”

“ _I am glad to hear from you,”_ he said quietly, and the words were like a gust of warm air, heating her face, curling her toes. “ _I did not expect to._ ”

“I thought I would keep you on your toes,” she replied lightly, deliberately skimming over the weight in his words. There was that earnestness, again, glowing unexpectedly beneath everyday phrases. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

“ _Very considerate_ ,” he rumbled, 

They fell silent again, and the phone chirped once more in warning. She had one minute left. “What are you doing right now?” she blurted.

“ _I’m at home._ ”

“Obviously. Working?”

“ _Reading. Nothing important. You are not at home,_ ” he added matter-of-factly.

“No, I’m at the train station. Friedrichstraße.”

“ _Why?_ ”

She bit her lip, cast about for a change in topic. “Have you ever been to a _Christkindlmarkt_?”

“ _Nein._ ”

“Would you like to?”

“ _With you?_ ”

“Well nobody’s forcing you,” she said, affronted, “but that was the idea.”

“ _I was just—yes. I would enjoy that._ ”

“How soon can you be here?”

“ _Friedrichstraße?_ _Fifteen minutes, twenty.”_

“I’ll be waiting. _Tchuss._ ”

 

.

In the sixteen minutes it took him to meet her at the station, Gaby cycled from anticipation to embarrassment, and then straight into irritation – irritation with herself, mostly, beginning with her overreaction to her neighbour’s arrest, and ending with her impulse decision to invite Illya Nikolayev to a Christmas market, of all things. He was older than she was, was an accomplished architect, had studied in Paris and travelled to Switzerland like it was nothing. If she hadn’t seemed childish before, she reasoned miserably, she certainly would now. When she spotted him, crossing towards her with that serious expression on his face, she could manage little more than a scowl.

“ _Guten Tag,_ ” he said, looking predictably handsome in a black coat and grey scarf.

“Let’s go,” she snapped, and swept past him towards the doors.

The walk to the nearest market was not long, and she spent most of it quietly fuming. A part of her realized it was unfair of her to drag a man into town and then ignore him completely, and was ashamed of her behaviour. But another, louder part of her could not stand the feeling his presence evoked in her, and the self-consciousness it elicited. She felt excruciatingly aware of him with every step they took. What made it worse was how completely unaffected he seemed. There was no awkward, fumbling conversation; no heavy, lingering stares. In fact, his gaze seemed to alight everywhere but her, taking in the streets, the buildings, the people. It was disconcerting.

“Here we are,” she said finally, feeling the need to break the silence as they crossed the street towards the market. “A genuine _Christkindlmarkt_.”

The market was teeming with people, an oasis of holiday spirit in the drabness of Berlin. The air was alive with the sound of voices, raised in song and in laughter; the smell of bread and spices drifted down the street, carried by the winter breeze.

“Well? What do you think?”

“I would have thought Christmas markets were a thing of the past,” he replied mildly, his eyes scanning the crowds, the vendors, the wares.

“They are,” she said flatly, striding towards the closest row of stalls. “They’re called _Socialist Festivals for Peace_ now. Which is bullshit, of course. You can’t change what something is just by slapping a different name on it.”

“In my experience, you can.”

“Then you need to look closer. A new name is just a new coat of paint. The machinery is the same.”

He nodded, once, and she huffed out a sigh.

The rows between stalls were filled with families and their children. Illya looked even more out of place than he usually did, towering over so many people, the somber colours of his outfit contrasting sharply with the festive atmosphere. It occurred to her, as a group of middle-aged women eyed them with interest, that they must look like a young, married couple, and frowned at the thought.

She stopped to look at a tree ornament display, trying to cover her unease, and felt him pause next to her, a handsbreadth away. “So I guess you don’t celebrate Christmas,” she said pointedly, addressing a wooden angel carving. “Good communist that you are.”

“There are no bad communists.”

“Only traitors, right?”

“And defectors,” he added. She couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, and frowned at him just in case. “Christmas in Russia is in January,” he continued matter-of-factly. “Most people celebrate the New Year, instead.”

She moved on to the next stall, and he followed, lingering half a step behind her. “And those that don’t?” she asked.

“Peasants, mostly. Farmers. They cling to tradition.”

“And you?” She threw him a glance over her shoulder and caught his gaze, holding it for a moment. His expression was disconcertingly neutral, like a mask, obscuring his true features. She turned away, fixing her stare on a line of nutcrackers to her right.

“I prefer New Year’s.”

“Why?”

“It’s a modern holiday.”

“And there’s no room for tradition in the modern world, of course.”

He paused, as though mulling it over, and then said: “Christmas is usually celebrated in the home, with family.”

“And?”

“I have been apart from my family for a long time.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she said nothing, and continued moving slowly through the market, paying exaggerated attention to the wares they passed. It was as though his words had cast light on another piece of his life, drawing attention to the space where a family should have been. She could certainly relate to that. After all, she hadn’t celebrated Christmas last year either. It seemed meaningless, somehow, when you had no one to celebrate with but yourself.

“What is _Glühwein_?” Illya asked, startling her from her thoughts. They had wandered to a stand selling the beverage, and she described it, pointing to a couple drinking from paper cups. His eyes lit up with recognition. “Would you like some?” he asked, pulling his wallet from his pocket, and the simple question flustered her so unexpectedly that all she could manage was a jerky nod.

The girl manning the stall was tall and rosy-cheeked, and looked no older than Gaby. She watched as the girl smiled prettily at something Illya said, pouring the wine out with a ladle, and she grabbed the first proffered cup without a word, clutching it between her hands, the warmth seeping through her gloves. Her embarrassment was fading, taking most of her irritation with it; it left difficult questions in its place. Namely: what had possessed her to invite him here, with her, in the first place? She could have called anybody else. And yes, her friends tended to ask a lot of questions, but it was only because they cared; they were concerned about her. They didn’t have to be, of course, but they were – and most of the time, she appreciated that.

She breathed in the familiar scent of the hot drink in her hands – orange and clove, cinnamon and red wine – and frowned at the shopgirl, blushing and brushing her hair behind her ear. Illya Nikolayev didn’t ask any questions. He walked and talked like an automaton, a machine parodying a man; and then between flat pleasantries and enigmatic comments, he sent her these _looks_ , half fearful, half enamoured, like he was trying to commit her to memory.

“ _Dankeschön_ ,” he rumbled, and the girl all but melted, chirping “ _Bitte, bitte,_ ” as they walked away. Gaby didn’t blame her. He certainly cleaned up nicely, his hair neatly combed, his coat perfectly tailored; and a polite, handsome stranger was often all it took for a crush to bloom. His pleasant demeanour, however, irked her. It was like the coffee shop all over again. She wasn’t interested in this mild, formal Illya Nikolayev, who navigated conversations with little more than perfunctory niceties. She wanted a flash of what she had seen to lie beneath: a man who lost his temper and spoke his mind; a man who let German girls race his car down city streets at a hundred kilometres per hour, and didn’t so much as blink at skidding tires and handbrake turns.

“She was pretty,” Gaby said pointedly, looking for a reaction. He was so mild now, so perfectly placid. Had she made it all up? Lingering stares and provocations and all?

“I suppose,” he said, taking a curious sip of the wine. He licked his top lip as he lowered his cup, and she swallowed, averting her eyes.

“Let’s sit down,” she said, feeling weak in the knees, and veered towards an empty bench. She folded herself onto the seat, and Illya did the same across from her, setting his cup onto the table, his back ramrod straight. Sitting down, she realized, had been a mistake; now, across from him, she had nowhere to look but his face. Winter suited him. The faint, white sunshine brought out the platinum in his hair, the gold in his skin; made his eyes look pale and transluscent, like glass.

“How’s the _Glühwein_?” she asked flatly, and he tipped his head, looking down at his cup. His lips were red from the wine, she noticed; she tried not to stare. It must have had a shot of brandy in it, she thought, for the heat she was feeling in her face, and the buzzing in her fingertips.

“Satisfactory.”

“ _Satisfactory?_ ”

“We have the same drink in Russia. _Glintwein_.” She looked at his hands, so pale and broad where they rested against the table, and imagined reaching out, covering them with her own. His skin would be smooth and cool, she thought, like marble.

“I see.”

“Is better in Russia.” The dropped article was a jarring little mistake, incongruous with his clean, practiced accent.

“Of course it is,” she said, letting it slide, and he tilted his head back, a hint of arrogance in the set of his jaw.

“ _Ja_. It is originally a Russian recipe.”

“As with all the great foods of Europe, I’m sure,” she said dryly, and he nodded seriously.

“And Asia. It was invented by Nikolay Nikolaevich…Orlov, to welcome dignitaries from the Orient. In the twelfth century.” He was joking with her, she realized, trying to coax a smile out of her. Surprised, she pressed her lips in a firm line, amused but loathe to show it.

“So we have Herr Orlov to thank for our Christmas traditions.”

“Modern civilization owes much to the Russian nation,” he said grandly, and she scowled.

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m writing a history book.”

Later, he bought her _Lebkuchen_ and walked her back to the train station, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black wool coat. He listened more than he talked, watching her face and hands carefully as she told him about the garage, the impossibility of competing in top-level international races with state-owned auto manufacturing, the rising costs of Formula Junior, and the genius of Heinz Melkus, who had managed to take a Wartburg engine and rework it into a car that could top 170 kilometres an hour.

“But none of that really matters,” she said at length. “I’ll never get my hands on a Melkus.”

“From what I’ve seen, you don’t need one.” He said it smoothly, without inflection; but the reference to that night in his car sparked something within her all the same. “This was enjoyable,” he said after a moment, slowing down ever further as they approached the station. “Thank you for inviting me.”

“ _Bitte_. I thought it might do you good to see a part of Berlin that isn’t under construction. I hope I didn’t bore you too much.”

“It was very interesting,” he said, in the way one might comment on the weather. “An architect’s job is half tourism. I enjoy seeing the sights.” _I enjoy seeing the sights_. He sounded like he was auditioning for an elementary school play, she thought derisively.

“Did you really have nothing better to do today?” she prodded.

“Didn’t you?” he countered, unfazed, and she frowned.

“I was waiting for a friend at the station,” she said defensively. “She didn’t show up.”

“I’m glad she didn’t,” he said, looking right at her with soft, wide eyes, and there it was, when she least expected it – that flicker of life. It was like a kick to the stomach.

“Lucky you,” she managed after a moment, and he turned his head to hide his smile. She counted it as another victory.

“Do you have plans for the holidays?”

“ _Ja_ ,” she said. “Some friends of mine are throwing a party for New Year’s Eve.”

“ _Ah_.”

“What,” she said, taking offence at his tone, “do you have better plans?”

“A quiet night in.”

“So you’re doing nothing.”

He glanced at her and said nothing. She imagined him sitting in an armchair reading _How The Steel Was Tempered_ , listening to the State Anthem of the USSR, sipping on vodka with ice as the clock struck midnight. It was both endearing and tragic. Of course, she couldn’t invite him to Hilde and Josef’s for New Year’s Eve – nor did she want to. He seemed to exist outside of her regular life, apart from it; the thought of Illya Nikolayev, so tall and broad and austere, standing among her friends at a party seemed almost more tragic than the idea of him alone in his apartment.

Still, if he thought sitting at home by himself was better than drinks and friends and rock n’roll, that was his problem.

“To each his own,” she said disapprovingly, and left it at that.

He followed her into the station and to the tracks, where they joined the growing crowd of people waiting for the train. “You live this way?” she asked, surprised.

“No,” he said mildly.

“You don’t have to wait with me.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said, emphasizing her words. It felt vitally important, somehow, that he take her seriously; that he realize she was not some naïve East Berliner who would be easily impressed, but rather a force to be reckoned with.

Instead of nodding and acquiescing, he gave her a strange look, like he didn’t quite understand what she was saying. “I know this,” he said, his eyebrows drawing together. She sighed and turned toward the tracks, glaring across the platform.

The train didn’t take long. The brakes squealed tremendously as it slowed to a stop, which saved her from having to think of something to say; and yet, she felt the need to say something, anything, so as to not part in this terrible, uncertain silence. She stayed in place, wracking her brain, as the doors opened and passengers poured out, pushing their way towards the exit.

He startled her with a hand on her back. “You’ll miss the train,” he rumbled, his voice carrying above the din, and she moved automatically towards the door, viscerally aware of the gentle press of his palm on her back. She turned back as she passed through the door, trying to catch his eye, a last ditch effort to reach him. “I’ll see you!” she called.

“ _Bis bald_ ,” he mouthed, and there it was – that look in his eyes, like he was seeing her for the very last time. The doors slid shut between them. She watched him through the window, standing on the platform as the train pulled away; a tall man in black, alone in the crowd; an unlikely friend in a sea of strangers, watching her speed away.

 

.

 

Alone on the train, she felt suddenly anxious to return home. The crowd was oppressive, the press of people jostling her back and forth. Her neck prickled; her pulse thrummed conspicuously in her throat. Nobody would meet her eye, even when she stared openly, daring them to look up; and yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on her back, biding their time, waiting to catch her in the act.

 _In what act?_ she asked herself, exasperated. She was simply taking the metro home, like everybody else in the crowded compartment. _Yes,_ said a voice in her head, _but these people aren’t sleeper agents. These people didn’t telephone MI6 this morning._ The sound of someone bursting into laughter startled her, and she jumped, stepping on another woman’s toes. A movement caught her attention from the corner of her eye, and she watched, breath caught, heart racing, as a man reached into his jacket to pull out – a handkerchief. It was a relief to reach her stop and escape the crowd. She felt no less secure on the street, but at least she didn’t feel boxed in, like a mouse in a maze, watched, evaluated, observed.

On her way up to her flat, she ran into Frau Dreschner, who asked her over for Christmas dinner.

“ _Danke_ ,” she said, feeling cornered. “Really. But I’m going to my friend’s – you remember Hilde.”

“Ah, of course, of course,” said the older woman. “Well, remember, there’s a plate here for you, if you want it.”

“ _Danke_ ,” she said again, then made an excuse and slipped up the stairs. Frau Dreschner was a good person and a wonderful neighbour; she’d been a good friend of Gaby’s father’s, and made it her business to make sure Gaby had food to eat and clothes to wear. Still, the idea of spending Christmas with the Dreschner’s inspired little more than dread. She didn’t think she could handle a whole night of family cheer, knowing she was an outsider, only invited because she had nowhere else to go.

In fact, she did have somewhere else to go. Hilde really had invited her, as had Otto, and even Ralf had extended an offer; but she had turned each of them down, claiming a previous engagement. She appreciated her friends’ concern, but knew that anywhere she went she’d be out of place. Whenever she spent time with other families, it seemed, her own father’s death was the elephant in the room, the unbroachable topic they all painstakingly talked around. No, she thought; she would make herself a nice stew, and buy a bottle of wine, and would listen to great music, and perhaps read a book. Suddenly, she remembered the image she had had of Illya on New Year’s Eve, reading by himself, and huffed out a laugh despite herself. Perhaps they weren’t so different.

But no – she was _choosing_ to spend Christmas alone, because that was what she wanted. Illya Nikolayev would be spending New Year’s Eve alone because he was a grown man who was apparently incapable of making friends, or at the very least, unwilling. Which was his own damn fault, and categorically not her problem.

She took a bath, warming the chill that had crept into her bones, and then sat on her bed to brush her hair and figure out what to do with the rest of her day. She thought again about calling someone, if only to have something to do, but her heart wasn’t in it. The thought of having to make any more conversation exhausted her. And yet, it was barely two o’clock; she could hardly sit there for the rest of the day.

She would go to the garage, she decided, relaxing immediately at the idea. There was nothing like work to take her mind off of things, and to eat up the hours in the day. Yes, she would go to work, and then maybe afterwards she would feel like socializing.

Or not – maybe she would just come home, and have a drink, and try to sleep at a normal time, and dream dreams where no guns went off, and nobody hammered on her door, and there was no wall, and she was still a dancer in the ballet, always reaching, always leaping, and never looking down.

 

.

 

As it happened, she didn’t dream of guns or walls or the secret police, and she didn’t dream of the ballet, either. Instead, she dreamed of the night Illya Nikolayev had picked her up in his car, and given her the wheel, and told her to drive; and in her dream, he smelled of cinnamon and clove, and he spoke to her in Russian, propelling her onwards, on and on through the darkness of the night.

Illya didn’t call; it didn’t surprise her. She tucked the paper with his phone number written on it into her address book, sliding it between the last page and back cover. Writing it down seemed weighty, imbued with permanence, and entirely inappropriate for such an inconstant figure in her life. Little things would remind her of him though, like red wine and gingerbread, and the gloves she kept tucked into her coat pocket; and she would think of him standing on the platform at Friedrichstraße, watching her go. In those moments, she would reach for the phone, and raise her hand to dial his number; but, after all, what would she say him? And so she didn’t call, and he didn’t either, and his phone number stayed tucked inside her address book, pressed flat against the pages.

Hilde invited her out dancing, and she told her she was having dinner with Otto; instead, she went to the garage and organized her entire workstation, top to bottom, wiping everything down before putting it back in its place.

“Are you alright?” Otto asked, walking by with a stack of folders under his arm. His moustache was twisted in concern, and she felt a pang of guilt at the thought that she had worried him.

“I’m fine,” she said breezily. “It was just a mess in here, that’s all.”

“It’s always a mess in here,” he said slowly. “You may have noticed – it’s dirty work.”

“I just wanted to tidy up a bit. Really, it’s nothing.”

“Have you been sleeping well?”

She laughed, and the sound came out hollow. “Otto, I never sleep well.”

“Go home,” he said gently. He eased the grimy cloth she was clutching from her hands and looked at her with worried eyes, the effect magnified by his glasses. “You work too much.”

“What else am I going to do?” she asked, more than a little desperately, and he shook his head, concern etched into every line of his face.

“You’re young,” he said. “Do whatever you like.”

 _Do whatever you like_ , Gaby mused. What did she like? She liked driving – racing. But East Germany just didn’t have the horsepower to compete anymore, didn’t have the money. There were local events, of course, fanatics who raced Trabbants like they were Ferraris, but she refused to settle for a pale imitation of the real sport – it was an insult to automotive engineering. And then, of course, there was music, the one thing guaranteed to help her escape from herself; but lately, more often than not, it was just another painful reminder of the world beyond the wall.

Normal young people, she supposed, spent their time with friends, talking, laughing, having fun. But this was becoming harder and harder. Her friends were getting older, getting married; and, worse than that, they were habituating themselves to the new status quo. Nobody liked the Stasi, or the Staatsrat, or the Protective Wall – but their anger was fading. They were moving on with their lives, and Gaby couldn’t understand it. She felt a rift, small but growing, between herself and Hilde, and Elsa, and Margret, and all the others who seemed ready to give in to a life behind concrete, never fighting, never even peering over to the other side. She couldn’t accept it. She _wouldn’t_ accept it.

The only person she knew who she thought might understand, she realized, was Illya Nikolayev. He had given her no reason to suspect anything less than whole-hearted devotion to his country, to the East – but that wasn’t surprising. People rarely spoke their minds about these things, even in private. What he _had_ told her, however – studying in Paris, shopping in Geneva – felt like an admission, however small, that there was beauty beyond the borders, no matter what the propaganda said.

How unlikely, she mused, that her only point of contact with the West should be a Russian.

The next day she went to Hilde and Josef’s for coffee and cake, as she usually did, and listened half-heartedly as Josef talked about his new job drafting inter-departmental communications between the city, the army, and the various construction crews involved in the building of the wall.

“Selling out so soon, Sepp?” she asked, only half-joking, and avoided Hilde’s warning glare.

“I assure you, my revolutionary heart is aching,” he quipped, taking a drag on his cigarette, “but my back has never felt better.” The power was out again; his glasses flashed strangely in the light of the candles Hilde had lit on the table.

“How was dinner last night?” asked Hilde, not looking at her.

“Oh, you know,” Gaby said evasively, “uneventful. Otto’s well, Hedda’s well. They got a new cat.”

“That’s nice. And you’re spending Christmas with them, right?” Gaby was about to nod when Hilde added: “Or was it with Frau Dreschner? I can never remember.” There was something in her voice that Gaby didn’t like; some searching undertone, like she was trying to catch her in her lie.

“They both invited me, actually,” she said, carefully casual, “but I think I’ll go to Otto’s. Frau Dreschner has enough mouths to feed.”

“Right,” Hilde said, nodding and squinting, and Gaby tried not to squirm.

And why couldn’t Hilde leave her alone about Christmas, anyway? Gaby could spend the day alone if she wanted to. It was nobody’s business what she did. She thought back to Hilde’s little intervention the other week, and something in her hardened. She could be reckless if she wanted to! She was only twenty-two, damn it! So what if she liked fast cars, and good music; so _what_ if she liked to earn a little money on the side? She wasn’t hurting anybody. _And for god’s sake_ , Hilde had said, _don’t start getting friendly with any Russians_ – as if that had anything to do with anything. At this rate, it wasn’t the Russians that were going to be the death of her; it was the East Germans who insisted on staring at their feet and pretending like nothing was wrong.

She excused herself as the power came back on, and walked home, hoping to cool off. Night had fallen; the shops were just closing. The problem, she thought bitterly, was that everyone was trying to tell her what she could and could not do. Her father had always warned her not to indulge her rebellious streak; but the more they threw rules at her, the more she wanted to break them.

 _You can’t cross the border. You failed to qualify. We don’t allow women to race. You can’t work here._ A door slammed somewhere down the street, and she froze, straining to hear footsteps, voices, anything. _Don’t take so many risks. Don’t criticize the state. Don’t listen to that Western garbage. Don’t pick fights you can’t win. Keep your mouth shut. Keep your head down._ She kept walking.

Her temper worsened with every minute that passed, until she was fairly stomping up the steps to her apartment, shaking from anger and from the cold. _Don’t be so angry. Don’t drink so much. Don’t talk like that, they’ll hear you. Don’t talk to the police. Don’t talk to strangers. Never talk to the Russians._

They could all go fuck themselves, she thought viciously, storming in through the front door. Let them talk. Let them try and tell her what was what. She was done caring.

She poured herself a full glass of brandy and sat down to drink it bitterly by the window. She didn’t bother to turn the lamp on; light streamed out from her kitchen, throwing a bright yellow square against the living room floor. The familiar shapes of her furniture loomed like unknown landmarks in the dark, and she had the sudden, terrifying thought that somebody could be hiding among them, biding their time, waiting for the right moment to attack. She reached for the light, then clenched her fist and brought it back, unwilling to give in to her paranoia.

As she drank, she sprawled sideways on the sofa and listened to the rumble of cars passing by below. She remembered Hilde’s scandalized look when she’d told her that Illya had asked her out; she thought of Otto’s disapproving glance when she’d told him she was getting coffee, not saying with whom, not needing to. And slowly, she allowed herself to think of Illya Nikolayev’s eyes, soft and warm in a cold, hard face; and his mouth, red from wine; and his hand, hard on the steering wheel, gentle on her back, guiding her towards the train.

The first time she had met him, he had been rude, demanding; and the second time she had seen him, he had berated her, practically yelled at her, accusing her of incompetence. But it was different now. He had changed; or perhaps she had, and saw him now through different eyes. He had been offended, all those months ago, had thought that she was ignoring him because of his name, because of where he was from. How awful it must be, she thought, not for the first time, to be sent somewhere you are distrusted, to do a job for which you will be hated. How painful, to be so very alone in a city full of people.

It was not so much a decision as an impulse, the result of a series of encounters put into motion months ago, when she picked up the phone and dialed the number tucked between the last page and back cover of her address book. The phone range once, twice, three times; and just as she was about to put the receiver down, change her mind, give up for the night, the line clicked and his voice sounded in her ear.

“ _Hallo_?”

“I was thinking of you,” she said without preamble. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, stark in the half-darkness of her empty apartment. The alcohol she had been drinking buzzed in her veins, numbing her fingers, making her stomach swoop at the low rumble of his voice.

“ _Oh?”_ he said finally, and she pictured him: perched on a hard-backed chair, his eyebrows faintly drawn, his expression carefully neutral.

“ _Ja_.” She stood up and stepped over to the window. The street, when she pulled back the curtain, was empty; windows up and down the road glowed yellow, showing people working, families eating, televisions flickering. “I was thinking of how much you must hate Berlin.”

“ _I do not hate Berlin_.”

“You should,” she said quickly. “I do.”

“ _Gaby_ —“ he said, a warning note in his voice, but she ignored him.

“I really do. It’s grey, empty. Lonely.” There was silence for a moment, and then she heard a sigh crackle through the receiver. “Do you disagree?” she prompted.

“ _I am used to it._ ”

“Berlin? Or loneliness?”

“ _Being alone._ ” She moved her hand, let the curtain fall.

“And you’re okay with this?”

“ _It is what it is._ ”

“I don’t think that’s true,” she said. Her head was spinning; she was drunk, perhaps. She leaned back against the wall to steady herself. “I think you choose to be alone.”

“ _Choice is relative_.”

“To what?”

“ _Your options._ ”

“Here’s an option,” she said. “Come over.” She swallowed. “Not now, I mean. For Christmas. Come over for Christmas.”

“ _Won’t your family mind?_ ”

“No family,” she said quietly. “Just me.”

He was silent for a long time, his breathing barely audible in her ear. And then: “ _Perhaps this is not good idea._ ”

Her heart dropped, settled to throb somewhere near her stomach. She had expected hesitation, maybe, but not a refusal. “What?”

“ _It is—I—this—_ “ He trailed off awkwardly, and she sat down, sliding down the wall, absorbing this turn of events.

“You don’t have to,” she managed, her voice coming out cool, alien to her own ears.

“ _I would like to,”_ he said carefully, slowly, an apology in his voice.

“But you won’t.”

“ _I do not want to intrude._ ” It struck her as an odd excuse to make. _Intrude on what,_ she wondered hazily, frowning.

“You’re not intruding.”

“ _You are sure_?”

“ _Ja_.” She waited, tugging lightly on her hair, for him to say something more. “So will you come?”

Another pause. “ _Ja._ ”

“Good,” she said, and then repeated herself, suddenly exhausted. “Good. Come around seven, then. Do you remember the address?”

“ _Ja_.”

“Bring wine. And don’t expect a roast, or anything.”

“ _Simple_.”

“ _Ja_. We’ll keep it simple. _Bis später_ , Illya.”

“ _Auf Wiederhören_ ,” he said, and then, quietly: “ _Gute Nacht_.”

“ _Gute Nacht_ ,” she murmured, and kept the phone pressed to her ear until the line fell silent.


End file.
